Hi, Robot! They Come Bearing Coffee, Sex, and Death

Home , Kurt Loder, Nick Gillespie, Robot (dance), The Final Amendment

reason Free Minds and Free Markets Hi, Robot! They come bearing coffee, sex, and death. It’s time we welcome our artificial brethren. April 2015 April The Settlement Shakedown Charlie Hebdo in the Dock Life on the Political Fringe $3.95 U.S. & Canada The Science of Mindfulness: A Research-Based Path TIME to Well-Being ED O T FF I E IM R Taught by Professor Ronald D. Siegel L H M S 70% C H A O 2 R off 2 1. Why Mindfulness Matters D H ER RC 2. Our Troublesome Brains BY MA 3. Informal, Formal, and Intensive Practices 4. Who Am I? The Perils of Self 5. Mindfulness or Psychotherapy? 6. Attention and Empathy in Relationships 7. The Science of Compassion and Self-Compassion 8. Tailoring Practices to Fit Changing Needs 9. Modifying Our Brain Function and Structure 10. Solitude—An Antidote to Loneliness 11. Connecting with Children and Adolescents 12. Seeing Sadness and Depression in a New Light 13. Befriending Fear, Worry, and Anxiety 14. Transforming Chronic Pain 15. Placebos, Illness, and the Power of Belief 16. Interrupting Addiction and Troublesome Habits 17. Overcoming Traumas Large and Small 18. Groundbreaking Mindfulness Programs 19. The Neurobiology of Self-Preoccupation 20. Growing Up Isn’t Easy—Facing Impermanence 21. Toward a Science of Wisdom 22. The Promise of Enlightenment 23. Mindful Ethics as a Path to Freedom 24. The New Science of Happiness Meld Ancient Wisdom

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April 2015 reason Volume 46, No. 11 Free Minds and Free Markets

Departments 70 Roombas in the Big House? Briefly Noted What to do when robots break the 58 Katherine Mangu-Ward on the 2 It’s Stupid Season. Have You law. Greg Beato alcohol delivery app Klink Been Vaccinated? 60 Robby Soave on the documentary How the press turned a local issue Suffer No Fools into the first controversy of the Features 62 Jesse Walker on John Bicknell’s 2016 presidential campaign. America 1844 Matt Welch 18 The Robot Revolution Is Here 64 Ronald Bailey on the documentary They’re sweeping my floors, The Immortalists 4 Contributors watching my kids, and stealing my 66 Ed Krayewski on the TV show job. Here’s why I’m not worried. Orphan Black 6 Citings Katherine Mangu-Ward Click yes for porn; Cuba libre; 60 How to Survive a Robot Uprising predator bots; bad building 26 Sex, Love, and Robots Seeing dark omens of catastrophe codes; North Korea vs. art; Google Will sexbots make human life in new tech demos. Robin Hanson tax backlash; computers that can better, creepier, or both? Rise of the Robots: Technology and learn… Elizabeth Nolan Brown the Threat of a Jobless Future, by Martin Ford 54 Reason TV: Should Pregnant 36 Will They Take Our Jobs? Addicts Go to Jail? MIT economist Andrew McAfee 64 Somalia Lived While Its Criminalizing dependency on driverless cars, wireless Government Died is counterproductive and fishermen, and the second “Serious” foreign policy minds unconstitutional. Amanda Winkler machine age. care about everything but citizens’ Interview by Katherine Mangu-Ward lives. Brian Doherty Somalia in Transition Since 2006, Columns 44 The Settlement Shakedown by Shaul Shay Federal and state governments 12 Charlie Hebdo in the Dock are extracting and pocketing huge 68 Feeling Clint Eastwood’s Disgust Despite its stand against the payments from big businesses, American Sniper is not a pro-war terrorist’s veto, France treats perverting justice along the way. movie. Kurt Loder offensive words and images as Scott Shackford crimes. Jacob Sullum 72 Artifact: RoboCop 1.0 50 Life Out on the Political Fringe An automated policeman, from 14 Regulatory Robophobia Peter Bagge 1924. Nick Gillespie We don’t need a federal commission to govern things that go beep in the night. Culture & Reviews Cover Photo: Courtesy Honda Motor Co. Veronique de Rugy 56 Hi, Robot 16 Let Slip the Robots of War How science fiction androids Lethal autonomous weapon became real-life machines. systems might be more moral Peter Suderman than human soldiers. Ronald Bailey

reason (ISSN 0048-6906) is published monthly except combined August/September issue by the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, 5737 Mesmer Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90230-6316. Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA, and additional mailing offices. Copyright © 2015 by Reason Foundation. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use, without permission, of editorial or graphic content is prohibited. reason and Free Minds and Free Markets are registered trademarks owned by the Reason Foundation. SUBSCRIPTIONS: $38.50 per year. Outside U.S. add $10/year surface, $55/year airmail. Address subscription correspondence to reason, P.O. Box 8504, Big Sandy, TX 75755, Tele. 888-732-7668. For address change (allow six weeks), provide old address and new address, including zip code. UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS returned only if accompanied by SASE. INDEXED in Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, InfoTrac, Historical Abstracts, Political Science Abstracts, America: History and Life, Book Review Index, and P.A.I.S. Bulletin. Available on microfilm from University Microfilms International, 300 North Zeeb Rd., Dept. P.R., Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Printed in the United States.Publications Mail Agreement No. 40032285, return undeliverable Canadian addresses t0 P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill ON L4B 4R6. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to reason, P.O. Box 8504, Big Sandy, TX 75755. Publica- tions Mail Sales Agreement No. 1476696. From the Top: Matt Welch It’s Stupid Season. Have You Been Vaccinated? How the press turned a local issue into the first controversy of the 2016 presidential campaign.

It’s never too early to be reminded how and recommended at the hospital, it was the city willfully awful the political press can be during and state of New York. In January of this year, presidential campaign season. for example, New York City took the unusually In early February, some 11 months before aggressive step of mandating not just a measles the 2016 Iowa caucuses, a four-day foofaraw or whooping cough vaccination but a flu shot over vaccines provided a template for the ten- for any child entering a city-licensed preschool dency of the Fourth Estate and the partisans or day care facility. (Parents can apply for who game it to direct coverage away from gov- medical or religious exemptions.) This despite ernment policy and toward a falsely Manichean reports from the CDC that this year’s flu shot separation between Team Science and Team has an anemic effectiveness rate of 23 percent. Stupid. But journalists were not very interested It all started innocuously enough, with Pres- in the areas of vaccine policy that are actually ident Barack Obama going on the Today show debatable. They just wanted to find fools and February 2 and being asked by Savannah Guth- laugh at them. “The vaccination controversy rie whether, in the wake of increasing measles is a twist on an old problem for the Republi- outbreaks near Disneyland and elsewhere, can Party: how to approach matters that have “there should be a requirement that parents largely been settled among scientists but are get their kids vaccinated.” The president then not widely accepted by conservatives,” wrote said three things that just about everyone on The New York Times in its news pages. Lefty com- allegedly opposing sides of the resulting debate mentators were more direct: “Republican Party would also stress over the coming week: that Comes Out Against Basic Hygiene, For Free- “measles are preventable,” that “you should get dom,” went one headline in Wonkette. your kids vaccinated,” and—through his spokes- Observers with memories longer than man Josh Earnest the following day—that “it one week may recall that the anti-vaccination shouldn’t require a [federal] law for people to movement arose largely (though certainly not exercise common sense and do the right thing.” exclusively) from the progressive left, through celebrities such as Robert Kennedy Jr. and Given the volume and tenor of the ensuing Jenny McCarthy and in publications such as brouhaha, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Rolling Stone and The Huffington Post. The cur- vaccine policy is largely determined by Wash- rent measles outbreak is centered in the Dem- ington. “The measles vaccine,” wrote Los Angeles ocratic-dominated state of California, where Times columnist Robin Abcarian, in a sentiment local anti-vaccination rates correspond well shared widely among the political press, “has with progressive concentration. There is some become the first important controversy of the heavy-breathing skepticism from the fringes 2016 Republican presidential primary.” of libertarianism (sample 2014 headline from Yet when my second daughter was born in LewRockwell.com: “The CDC’s Cover-Up late January, it wasn’t the White House or the On Autism and the MMR Vaccine”), but as a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention matter of overall policy and politics the Ameri- (CDC) that dictated which shots would be given can mainstream continues to be heavily pro-

2 | reason | April 2015 vaccine, and the anti- side is distrib- Christie also pre-contributed to at best. Now then: Should public uted pretty evenly across the political the controversy through his state- schools refuse to admit children not spectrum. ment in 2009 that he will “stand inoculated against Hep B, a disease with” parents of autistic kids in “their correlated strongly with high-risk So why were Republicans in the cross- concern over New Jersey’s highest- behavior such as unprotected sex and hairs over immunization? Because in-the-nation vaccine mandates,” intravenous drug use, and typically presidential hopefuls Gov. Chris thus seeming to lend credibility to transmitted not through casual con- Christie of New Jersey and Sen. Rand a linkage that by then had already tact but via blood? Because that’s the Paul (Ky.) expressed their fundamen- been discredited, and would soon law in most of the land. Should state tal policy agreement with the presi- thereafter be retracted by its source. governments require annual flu shots dent while using language that raised (Though that didn’t stop Hillary Clin- for school kids? They do in New Jer- alarm bells among political reporters. ton and John McCain from making sey and Connecticut. Christie, while traveling in Lon- similar statements the year before, for When commentators weren’t don, was asked whether Americans which their careers did not suffer.) busy congratulating themselves should vaccinate their kids. He In a world of politicized science, do- in February for being on the right replied: “All I can say is that we vac- something journalism, and the struc- side of science, they were writing cinated ours. That’s the best expres- tural incentives for the continuous agonized think-pieces about, in the sion I can give you of my opinion. expansion of recommended shots, words of Kelly Wallace at CNN.com, It’s much more important, I think, worrying about the prevalence of “How to persuade the anti-vaxxers to what you think as a parent than what vaccine mandates in an outlier state vaccinate.” One suggestion that did you think as a public official. And is healthy, not crazy. But linking it to not, to my knowledge, come up: Make that’s what we do. But I also under- autism is profoundly unhelpful. damned sure every vaccine mandate stand that parents need to have some makes scientific and philosophical measure of choice in things as well That’s what partly ensnared Rand sense, so as not to breed distrust over so that’s the balance that the govern- Paul, when the journalism swarm the ones that are more necessary. ment has to decide. But I can just tell moved his direction. In the course of You don’t have to be paranoid people from our perspective, Mary agreeing with President Obama and to observe that the federal govern- Pat and I have had our children vacci- Gov. Christie that vaccines are “one ment has lied for decades about the nated and we think it’s an important of the biggest medical breakthroughs medical properties of marijuana part of making sure we protect their that we’ve had” but should not be while changing its mind constantly health and the public health.” forcibly mandated, the senator said, about the food pyramid and the cost/ To make this statement con- “I’ve heard of many tragic cases of benefit of salt. If you want less skepti- troversial, you have to assume that walking, talking normal children cism, stop earning it. And you don’t Christie is referring only to compara- who wound up with profound mental have to be a crazed libertarian (or tively no-brainer vaccinations, like disorders after vaccines.” This is liter- progressive!) to be creeped out by those against measles, rather than ally true—autism typically manifests the government telling you what to more questionable interventions, at some point after the vast majority inject into your child. The real debate such as mandatory flu shots and of infants receive vaccinations. But isn’t science vs. Jenny McCarthy, it’s infant immunizations against the the implied linkage and resulting the scope and terms of the available comparatively less communicable outrage was enough to prompt a exemptions at the state and local Hepatitis B. Indeed, the governor quick clarification from Paul that he level, far away from presidential clarified the next day that the measles “did not say vaccines caused disor- politics. That’s a much harder ques- mandate makes perfect sense. It also ders, just that they were temporally tion, one that the political press is helps to be ignorant of the fact that 48 related—I did not allege causation.” uniquely ill-equipped to handle. r of the 50 states already allow parents Let it be resolved that putting at least “some measure of choice,” in the words autism and vaccines in a Matt Welch ([email protected]) is editor in chief of reason. the form of opt-outs for religious and sentence without the connective tis- broader philosophical reasons. sue of is not caused by is inadvisable

reason | April 2015 | 3 BeauTree-ConscienceAudiobook_Reason.qxp_Layout 1 2/2/15 10:56 AM Page 1 reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch ([email protected]) Contributors Managing Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward ([email protected]) Elizabeth Nolan Brown is a staff editor for Deputy Managing Editor Stephanie Slade ([email protected]) Books Editor Jesse Walker ([email protected]) reason, where she covers issues related to repro- Senior Editors Brian Doherty ([email protected]) ductive rights, free speech, food policy, and Damon Root ([email protected]) Peter Suderman ([email protected]) more. Prior to that, she was an editor and blog- Jacob Sullum ([email protected]) ger with Defy Media and AARP publications. In Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey ([email protected]) Now hear this! Art Director Barb Burch ([email protected]) “Sex, Love, and Robots” (page 26), Brown, 32, Graphic Designer Jason Keisling ([email protected]) Photo Researcher Blair Rainey explores the future—and present—of intimate New Audiobooks from the Cato Institute Editorial Assistant Mary Toledo ([email protected]) Burton C. Gray Memorial Intern Jim Pagels (jim.pagels@ human-android relations. When not covering reason.com) sex, politics, or the politics of sexy robots, she reason.com Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie ([email protected]) says, “I love reading and writing about nutri- Managing Editor J.D. Tuccille ([email protected]) Elizabeth Nolan Managing Editor, Reason TV Meredith Bragg (mbragg@ Brown tion, psychiatry, and neuroscience.” THE CONSCIENCE OF THE reason.com) Associate Editors “How to Survive a Robot Uprising” (page Ed Krayewski ([email protected]) CONSTITUTION

Scott Shackford ([email protected]) 60) is the George Mason economist Robin Staff Editors BY: TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Elizabeth Nolan Brown ([email protected]) Hanson’s review of Rise of the Robots: Technol- Zenon Evans ([email protected]) Robby Soave ([email protected]) ogy and the Threat of a Jobless Future (Basic), a Producers “ Paul Feine, Senior Producer ([email protected]) book by Martin Ford. Hanson, 55, who worked A slender book that lucidly explains the Paul Detrick ([email protected]) Jim Epstein ([email protected]) for nearly a decade as an artificial intelligence

Alexis Garcia ([email protected]) intensity of conservatism’s disagreements

Todd Krainin ([email protected]) Robin Hanson researcher, is skeptical of the book’s claim that “ Alex Manning ([email protected]) Tracy Oppenheimer ([email protected]) robots will soon take over all, or even most, of with progressivism. Joshua Swain ([email protected]) Zach Weissmueller ([email protected]) the work human beings currently do. Asked why “ Amanda Winkler ([email protected]) he decided to make the jump from hard science —GEORGE F. WILL, Washington Post Contributing Editors Peter Bagge, Greg Beato, Gregory Benford, Veronique de Rugy, to economics, he says, “When you spend a lot of James V. DeLong, Charles Paul Freund, Glenn Garvin, Mike God- win, David R. Henderson, John Hood, Kerry Howley, Carolyn Loch- time looking for technology solutions to prob- head, Loren E. Lomasky, Mike Lynch, John McClaughry, Deirdre N. A great defense of individual liberty. McCloskey, Michael McMenamin, Michael Valdez Moses, Michael C. Moynihan, Charles Oliver, Walter Olson, John J. Pitney Jr., Julian lems, you realize that they are often really social Sanchez, Jeff A. Taylor, David Weigel, Cathy Young, Michael Young problems that need social solutions.” —SENATOR RAND PAUL Legal Adviser Don Erik Franzen “ Headquarters Jim Pagels, 23, is reason’s spring 2015 Bur- 5737 Mesmer Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90230-6316 Jim Pagels Tel: 310-391-2245 Fax: 310-391-4395 ton C. Gray Memorial Intern and the lucky Washington Offices 1747 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20009 young man tasked with transcribing our inter- Tel: 202-986-0916 Fax: 202-315-3623 Advertising Sales view with MIT economist Andrew McAfee (page Burr Media Group Ronald E. Burr, 703-893-3632 36). A Dallas native, Pagels graduated from Joseph P. Whistler, 540-349-4042 ([email protected]) Columbia University in 2013 with a bachelor’s Subscription Service P.O. Box 8504, Big Sandy, TX 75755 degree in American studies and English. He has 1-888-reason-8 (1-888-732-7668) ([email protected]) been published at Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, Circulation Circulation Specialists Inc. THE BEAUTIFUL TREE Newsstand Distribution Kable Distribution Services, 212-705-4600 and FiveThirtyEight. He hopes to carve a niche reason is published by the Reason Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational foundation. Contributions to the Reason Foun- for himself at the intersection of sports and pub- BY: JAMES TOOLEY dation are tax-deductible. Signed articles in reason reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the lic policy, and he says he’s “excited to use data editors, the Reason Foundation, or its trustees; articles should not be construed as attempts to aid or hinder the passage of any analysis to highlight liberty-minded concepts” is not another book lamenting what bill before any legislative body. The claims and opinions set forth The Beautiful Tree in paid advertisements published in this magazine are not neces- during his time with reason. sarily those of the Reason Foundation, and the publisher takes no has gone wrong in some of the world’s poorest nations responsibility for any such claim or opinion. Reason Foundation Trustees Thomas E. Beach, (Chairman), Baron Bond, Drew Carey, Derwood and communities. Instead, it powerfully demonstrates how S. Chase Jr., James R. Curley, Richard J. Dennis, Dr. Peter Farrell, David W. Fleming, Hon. C. Boyden Gray, James D. Jameson, Manuel S. Klausner, David H. Koch, James Lintott, Stephen the entrepreneurial spirit and the love of parents for their Modzelewski, David Nott, George F. Ohrstrom, Robert W. Poole Jr., Carol Sanders, Richard A. Wallace, Kerry Welsh, Fred M. Young, Harry E. Teasley Jr. (chairman emeritus), Frank Bond (emeritus), children can be found in privately created schools in every William A. Dunn (emeritus), Vernon L. Smith (emeritus), Walter E. Williams (emeritus) corner of the globe. President David Nott Vice President, Online Nick Gillespie Vice President, Magazine Matt Welch Vice President, Policy Adrian T. Moore Vice President, Research Julian Morris Vice President, Operations; Publisher Mike Alissi Chief Financial Officer Jon Graff AVAILABLE AT AUDIBLE.COM 4 | reason | April 2015 BeauTree-ConscienceAudiobook_Reason.qxp_Layout 1 2/2/15 10:56 AM Page 1 Now hear this! New Audiobooks from the Cato Institute

THE CONSCIENCE OF THE

CONSTITUTION

BY: TIMOTHY SANDEFUR A slender book that lucidly“ explains the

“intensity of conservatism’s disagreements with progressivism. —GEORGE F. WILL, Washington Post “

A great defense of individual liberty. “—SENATOR RAND PAUL

THE BEAUTIFUL TREE BY: JAMES TOOLEY

The Beautiful Tree is not another book lamenting what has gone wrong in some of the world’s poorest nations and communities. Instead, it powerfully demonstrates how the entrepreneurial spirit and the love of parents for their children can be found in privately created schools in every corner of the globe.

AVAILABLE AT AUDIBLE.COM Citings Pot asset forfeiture “wish.” Police returned in the Green Seized dead of night and arrested him. He now faces drug charges car- Robby Soave rying a seven-year sentence and When state a $500,000 fine. r Click yes for porn; police raided Wally Kowalski’s Cuba libre; predator southwest Michi- Mandatory equality failure gan farm in Sep- AUCTION TODAY Eternal Wage Gaps bots; bad building tember, they took a codes; North Korea bunch of Kowals- Ronald Bailey ki’s stuff. But they Equal pay for equal work vs. art; Google tax didn’t take Kow- seems only fair. So when govern- alski, putting him ments encounter a difference in backlash; computers in the odd position the average wages of men and that can learn of wishing he had women, they often assume invid- been arrested. ious discrimination. In 1988, Kowalski, a Ontario passed the most compre- licensed grower of price at auction. hensive pay equity legislation in medicinal marijuana, first drew The police also froze the the world, requiring employers police attention when cops spot- man’s bank accounts, which left to proactively devise and imple- ted his plants during a flyover. him unable to pay his student ment programs to eliminate the They contended that he had loans and finish the administra- gender wage gap. broken the rules by growing tive process of bringing his wife In the Fall 2014 issue of Con- out in the open, even though his from Africa to the United States. temporary Economic Policy, two garden is enclosed by a fence. Since the police never charged Lehigh University economists During the raid on Kowalski’s Kowalski with a crime, he found seek to answer the counterfac- property, cops destroyed his he had no way to clear his name tual question: What would have marijuana plants and seized his and recoup his possessions. He happened to the wage gap in power generator. They left his says he’d have preferred to take Ontario if the act hadn’t been shovels behind, however. He told his chances before a judge or passed? a local free market think tank, jury. To answer it, they employ the Mackinac Center for Public Months after the raid (and an algorithm that uses data Policy, that the authorities only mere days after the Mackinac from other Canadian provinces, seemed interested in taking Center and reason publicized including Gross Domestic Prod-

items that would fetch a good his plight), Kowalski got his uct per capita and employment (Creative_Outlet/Thinkstock) Police (liquidlibrary/Thinkstock) workers Farm 20 years ago in reason

“A new form of activism is shaking “So far, no American politician has been willing to say the political establishment.…By using that if stopping illegal immigration requires repeal- broadcast faxes, satellite television pro- ing the 13th Amendment, then by God that’s what we grams, radio talk shows, and electronic need to do. But just about anything else goes. National forums like those on CompuServe and ID cards, computerized federal databases, doctors the Internet, grassroots activists like the arresting their patients on the operating table, requir- Hartmans can bypass traditional media ing teachers to rat on their students and encouraging outlets. The rather anarchic nature of the students to rat on their parents, pitching newborn computer culture suggests that the babies back across the border: The Cold War had noth- infomedia revolution will tend to erode ing on this new battle against immigration.” the statist foundations of the political —Glenn Garvin, “No Fruits, No Shirts, No Service” establishment.” —Rick Henderson, “Cyberdemocracy” —April 1995

6 | reason | April 2015 rates, to construct a “synthetic” for a Porsche car dealership and reasonable expectation of pri- Quotes version of Ontario before and a popular political podcast. r vacy” in cell phone use. r after the law was passed. The only difference between the real “I think the nation needs Ontario and the synthetic one is Stingray surveillance Normalizing relations to realize that when we tell you to do something, do the wage gap law. They find that Cellphone Tracking Cuba Libre in both Ontarios, the wage gap it.” r narrows from 35 percent in 1988 Jim Pagels Stephanie Slade —Jeffrey Follmer, president to 30 percent in 2005. In fact, The FBI has declared its right to “It is clear that decades of U.S. of the Cleveland Police the latter wage gap was slightly use devices—called “stingrays” isolation of Cuba have failed Patrolmen’s Association, smaller in synthetic Ontario. or International Mobile Sub- to accomplish our enduring interviewed on MSNBC The researchers conclude scriber Identity catchers—that objective of promoting the emer- about the police killing that the law “failed to affect act like fake cell towers to moni- gence of a democratic, prosper- 12-year-old Tamir Rice, women’s pay relative to men’s in tor cell phone locations, calls, ous, and stable Cuba,” reads a December 15 Ontario in any clear, discernible and texts, all without a warrant. White House fact sheet released way.” r The claim, made during private December 17. With that, Presi- briefings with Senate Judiciary dent Barack Obama announced “I regret that I was unaware Committee staff, comes on the the result of months of secret that the phrase/hashtag U.K. Internet filtering heels of a November Wall Street negotiations: an official effort to ‘all lives matter’ has been used by some to draw Click Yes for Porn Journal report that small Justice normalize relations between two Department aircraft could col- long-estranged countries. attention away from the Peter Suderman lect identification and location Policy changes will include focus on institutional At the end of 2014, subscrib- data from tens of thousands of reopening an embassy in Havana violence against Black ers to the major U.K. Internet phones per flight. and allowing increased remit- people.” r services were interrupted by a Nine states have passed laws tances to be sent from the U.S. —email from Smith College government-mandated request requiring police to obtain a war- to Cuban nationals. The State President Kathleen McCart- asking whether network-level rant before using a stringray Department will also be review- ney apologizing for saying filtering of smutty content to track a phone. It is unclear, ing Cuba’s formal designation as that “all lives matter,” should be turned on. This hap- however, whether citizens will a state sponsor of terror. December 2 pened if they were attempting know when the authorities use The changes fall short of end- to access any website, no matter such devices. The Harris Corpo- ing the embargo, which would how anodyne. The idea, British ration, a Florida-based company require an act of Congress. Nor “I admire Hillary [Clinton], Prime Minister David Cam- that manufactures the snooping will they completely eliminate she’d be a great president, eron explained, was to present tools, requires police depart- the travel ban. Pure tourism by but you know, she isn’t my citizens with an “unavoidable ments to sign a non-disclosure Americans—a stay at one of the first choice I guess.” r choice” about whether to accept agreement that explicitly warns Caribbean nation’s beach resorts, —Jennifer Herrington, chair a top-level porn filter or not. them not to mention stingrays. for instance—remains prohib- of the Page County Demo- The messages made the gov- Sens. Chuck Grassley ited. People who wish to go to crats in southwest Iowa, 20 years ago in reason ernment’s position on the matter (R-Iowa) and Patrick Leahy Cuba will still have to qualify The Wall Street Journal, clear. They informed users that (D-Vt.) wrote a joint letter to under one of 12 “existing catego- January 5 the state hoped to encourage a Attorney General Eric Holder ries,” such as journalism, reli- “family friendly environment voicing concern about the FBI’s gious activities, or humanitarian on the Web,” one “free from position. That opposition is projects, although larger num- “Senator @marcorubio is pornography, gambling, extreme unlikely to gain much traction bers are expected to be approved acting like an isolationist violence and other content inap- in the Obama administration, within those designations. who wants to retreat to our propriate for children.” Cameron which has previously argued The Obama administration borders and perhaps build has accused online smut of “cor- that the feds have the right to says the changes are aimed at a moat. I reject this isola- tionism.” r roding childhood.” place GPS trackers on cars and further empowering the Cuban The nation’s largest Internet cameras outside residences with- people. The island nation’s presi- —tweet from Sen. Rand provider, BT, indicated that users out warrants, and which has also dent, Raul Castro, insists that Paul (R-Ky.) responding would be blocked from further stated that Americans have “no Communist rule will continue to Rubio’s objections to browsing until they answered and has called on Obama not to normalizing relations with the question. Others are likely to meddle in his country’s sover- Cuba, December 19 be opted in. Sky, another major eign affairs. r ISP, told Wired UK that users who don’t respond might eventually be shuffled into the program Federal racial profiling automatically. A Modest Proposal Those who opt for a porn- free Internet may be blocking Scott Shackford off other sites as well. Multiple In December, Attorney Gen- reports indicate that the filters eral Eric Holder gave a speech

have restricted access to nonsex- at a church in Atlanta declaring ≥

On phone (Fanatic Studio/Veer) On phone (Fanatic ual content, including websites that the Department of Justice

reason | April 2015 | 7

Data > would be introducing new poli- advantage of a lack of due pro- cies to “help end racial profiling cess to squelch a variety of legiti- once and for all.” mate transactions by legal but The reality turned out to potentially unsavory businesses. PREDATOR BOTS be less grandiose. The depart- One of the most striking U.S. DRONE STRIKES IN PAKISTAN ment did introduce new poli- documents released by the com- cies regarding racial profiling. mittee was this comment in an Info on where and how often American drone strikes happen—not to mention the number and types of But they were significantly less email from the head of the FDIC casualties they inflict—can be hard to come by. ambitious than Holder claimed. in Atlanta: “I literally can not Official statistics are often classified. A few sources of data about drone strikes in Pakistan do exist, The new guidelines prohibit FBI stand payday lending. They are however. Here is some of what we know about how agents from considering national abusive, fundamentally wrong, the U.S. uses drones to make war abroad. origin, sex, sexual orientation, hurt people, and do not in any or religion when opening a way deserve to be associated case, adding those to existing with banking.” The report also DRONE STRIKES IN PAKISTAN BY YEAR1 prohibitions against considering noted that the FDIC likely mis- race and ethnicity. Similar pro- led Congress about its level of hibitions were implemented for involvement in the program, 125 domestic activities by federal law playing a much more active role 100 122 enforcement officers. than initially advertised. 75 But the new policies will “It’s appalling that our gov- 73 50 not affect state and local law ernment is working around the 54 48 25 36 enforcement agencies, only the law to vindictively attack busi- 27 1 3 2 4 23 1 feds. Furthermore, the Transpor- nesses they find objectionable,” tation Security Administration Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 and those who handle inspec- in a statement. “Internal FDIC

Strikes in Pakistan have declined in recent years as the U.S. has turned its attention tions at ports or border cross- documents confirm that Opera- to other countries, including Syria. ings—arguably the two areas tion Choke Point is an extraor- where citizens are most likely to dinary abuse of government TOTAL PEOPLE interact with federal officials— power.” STRIKES1 1 393 2,212 to 3,591 KILLED are exempt. Other legal businesses caught As such, activist praise was in the regulatory crossfire muted for Holder’s changes. include cigar shops, ammunition 2% Laura W. Murphy, director of the sellers, fireworks vendors, and American Civil Liberties Union’s porn sites. r Known militant leaders killed by drone strikes Washington, D.C., legislative in Pakistan represent 1,755 2,950 militants killed1 office, toldThe Washington Post, just 2% of total 1 “The release of this revised Doctor pay cuts deaths. 258 307 civilians killed1 guidance is an important sig- Managing Medicaid nal of progress, but it does not 199 334 Peter Suderman Reprieve, a human killed, civilian status completely address the need for rights group, unknown1 reform of police tactics on a state When Obamacare passed in calculated that U.S. drone strikes kill 28 and local level.” r 2010, roughly half of the pro- unidentified people Over 168 children have jected increase in health insur- for every one been killed in drone intended target. ance coverage was expected strikes since 2004.2 Operation Choke Point to come through expanding Stealth Bank Bans Medicaid, a health care program for the poor and disabled jointly % Katherine Mangu-Ward run by the states and the federal 3,650 increase in drones $2.4 billion In 2002 the Pentagon had fewer than 200 requested by the Pentagon for The Justice Department and government. Some 16 million drones. By 2013 that number was over unmanned aerial vehicles in FY20154 the Federal Deposit Insurance 7,500.3 That’s 37.5 times as many drones. Corporation (FDIC) have been exploiting a secretive federal anti-fraud initiative to deter banks from doing business with disfavored industries, such as 2002 payday lending, a December report from the House Commit- 2013 BY JASON KEISLING AND tee on Oversight and Govern- STEPHANIE SLADE For links to sources visit ment Reform found. reason.com/predatorbots The program, called Opera- tion Choke Point, was supposed

SOURCES: (1) New America Foundation. (2) Bureau of Investigative Journalism. to be targeted at reducing bank- (3) USA Today. (4) Department of Defense. ing fraud. But internal docu-

(Jason Keisling) (Jason ments showed regulators taking Illustration/Veer) (ImageZoo Doctor

8 | reason | April 2015

Americans were supposed to get Brickbats coverage through the program by 2019, according to Congres- sional Budget Office estimates. A 2012 Supreme Court deci- Think there’s a problem in South Pittsburg, Ten- sion had the practical effect of nessee? Keep it to yourself. The City Commission making the Medicaid expan- has banned all city officials, employees, vendors, sion optional for individual contractors, volunteers, and anyone else with any states, muting the potential connection to the local government from posting impact somewhat. But Medic- anything negative about the city or its employees aid remains a major vehicle for online. Commission members explain that they’re coverage expansion under the tired of people asking them about things they read health care law. Between Octo- about the town on the Internet. ber 2013 and December 2014, the program saw its overall enroll- Just 19 of the 594 ment increase by 9.7 million, The signs in North Hempstead, New York, students in Pater- much of which is directly linked say the fine for not picking up your dog’s son, New Jersey, to Obamacare. poop is $250. That was an error: The schools who took Yet new Medicaid enrollees actual fine is just $25. Rather than correct the SAT this year may have trouble using their all of the signs, local officials are working scored at the coverage. Fee formulas vary by on increasing the fine. level considered state, but on average the pro- college-ready gram has historically had the by the College lowest physician reimbursement The British Advertising Standards Author- Board. Last year, rates of any health insurance ity has ordered Urban Outfitters to remove just 26 students had a scheme in the United States. an ad for women’s polka dot mesh briefs college-ready score on the test. The school district Obamacare temporarily inflated from its website. According to the agency, has responded by saying they’ll no longer use SAT rates to match Medicare pay- the model’s “thigh gap” indicates that scores to measure a student’s success. ments, but the temporary bump she’s too thin, so the photo could fuel expired at the end of 2014. anorexia and body image problems. Rates in some states changed Japanese prosecutors have charged artist Megumi little, and Medicaid managed- Igarashi with distributing “obscene data”—com- care programs may set different In Beloit, puter code that would allow 3D printers to create a rates. But on average, primary Wisconsin, kayak shaped like her genitalia. care reimbursements through the police the program dropped by 42.8 chief is percent, according to a Decem- asking resi- Llanfynydd Primary in Wales has no students. The ber study by Stephen Zucker- dents to vol- last of its 11 pupils departed months ago. But it is man, Laura Skopec, and Kristen unteer to let still open and has most of its staff. The Welsh gov- McCormack of the Urban Insti- his officers ernment requires a formal review before any school tute. search their can be closed, and that process is expected to take Some members of Congress, homes for a few more months. as well as the administration, guns. He says they should proposed extending the fee At 2 a.m. on Christmas morning, a D.C. police hike. Doctors certainly weren’t think of gun violence as an infectious disease and home inspections as a vaccine. detective knocked on Karen Robinson’s door and pleased by the cuts. One New asked to see a photo of her son Raymond. After Jersey physician, Dr. George studying it, he told her J. Petruncio, told The New York Burmese police have charged three Raymond had Times in December that the rate people with violating the nation’s religion shot at police changes amounted to a bait law. The accused own a nightclub that officers and switch. “The government allegedly had an image of the Buddha and they’d attempted to entice physicians wearing headphones on its Facebook returned fire, into Medicaid with higher rates,” page. They face up to two years in prison killing him. he said, “then lowers reim- if convicted. At around bursement once the doctors are 10 a.m. that involved.” r same day, Since starting in Norway last year, men’s Robinson underwear maker Comfyballs has intro- got a call from Bad building codes duced its product to Australia, New Zea- Raymond, who Energy Inefficient land, and the United Kingdom with no evidently wasn’t problem. But when it applied for a U.S. dead. Police have apologized for their mistake. Brian Doherty trademark, the government refused to

Buildings constructed accord- grant it, ruling that the company’s name ≥

Doctor (ImageZoo Illustration/Veer) (ImageZoo Doctor ing to supposedly strict energy TerryColon.com) (Illustrations: is vulgar. Charles Oliver

reason | April 2015 | 9 Follow-Up ings might use similar amounts of energy because older homes made similar upgrades even North Korea vs. Art without the codes forcing them Peter Suderman to do so. Or perhaps owners of the “energy-efficient” homes Kim Jong-il, dictator of North responded to lowered lighting or Korea from 1994 to 2011, always air conditioning costs by using fancied himself an artist. more energy. But if you advocate Throughout the 1970s—while such codes because they in and his father, Kim Il-Sung, ruled the of themselves cause less energy nation—he ran the country’s to be consumed, this study sug- culture ministry, and he was gests you ought to get your men- both a theorist and practitioner tal wiring examined. r of the dramatic arts. In 1974, Kim Jong-il published a treatise titled On the Art of Spanish search fight Opera: Talk to Creative Workers Google Tax Backlash in the Field of Art and Literature, Scott Shackford arguing that conventional opera was too abstract, with “clumsy” Last October, Spain’s parlia- acting and “tedious” dialogue. ment passed a law, pushed by As reason’s John Gorenfeld noted in “Dear Play- James Franco and Seth Rogen play Ameri- the country’s big publishers, that wright” (January 2005), Kim’s book describes the can journalists tasked with assassinating revised copyright regulations to way he and his father “discovered the husk of a Kim Jong-un during an interview. The hack- require payments for quoting tired art form and gave it a much-needed shot of ers’ demands culminated with threats of even snippets of writing from North Korean communism.” violence at movie theaters showing the media sources online. The law further gives news publishers The younger Kim put his revisionist notions about film; for a while it looked like the movie would never see the light of day. Sony an “inalienable right” to these theater into practice with productions of Sea of payments that cannot be sur- Blood, one of the regime’s “Five Great Revolution- eventually opted for a limited theatrical release and digital distribution. rendered, even by the publishers ary Operas.” In the early 1970s, he even directed a themselves. three-hour movie version of the show. The FBI fingered North Korea, which had Some observers called it the Today, his 31-year-old son Kim Jong-un leads the denounced the movie, as the party respon- “Google tax,” as it was obviously country. He seems to prefer geopolitical drama to sible for the hack. The Obama administra- designed to try to wring money theater. tion then announced sanctions, although out of online services that link several tech experts have cautioned that At the end of 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment to media outlets and include the evidence against North Korea was short excerpts of text, much was hacked. Final cuts of several unreleased films, weak. including Annie, were leaked online. The hackers like the service Google News also began posting packages filled with private Either way, the attack on Sony ended up provides. Thus, not allowing information about Sony employees, including calling attention to a widely panned movie publishers to refuse the money salaries, Social Security numbers, and executives’ that otherwise would likely have been made a certain sort of sense. If internal emails. forgotten. By the first week of January, The nobody is allowed exemptions, Interview had earned $31 million through Google can’t include in its news The hackers eventually demanded that Sony not digital distribution. North Korea’s young aggregation only those publish- distribute The Interview, a stoner comedy sched- leader may be a patron of the arts after all. ers who let them excerpt their uled for a Christmas Day release. In the movie, stories for free. Google and other search services would have to > efficiency codes may not be ter- building codes to California to California codes, while con- pay everybody, so the publishers ribly green after all, a new study homes not built to those stan- trolling for factors such as home pushing this payment scheme finds. The research, conducted dards, and to buildings of vari- size and weather. couldn’t be punished through by the Georgetown economist ous ages in other states not built Proponents of the codes market choices. Arik Levinson and predicted reductions Alternatively, Google could published by the of up to 80 percent in decide not to aggregate any National Bureau of energy use. But Levinson Spanish news at all, defeating Economic Research, found “no evidence that the purpose of the tax. That is might well drain the homes constructed since exactly what it did. In Decem- batteries of energy- California instituted its ber, the tech giant announced it efficient building code building energy codes would be shutting down its news advocates. use less electricity today aggregation service in Spain Levinson com- than homes built before entirely. No publishers would be pared homes built the codes came into getting money from Google, nor under California’s effect.” would their sites be getting the

post-1978 energy New and old build- page view boosts that come from (Soleilc/Veer) Houses

10 | reason | April 2015 Google’s links. Now the same Soundbite groups that attempted to require payments from Google are trying to get the Spanish government to Computers That Can Learn somehow prevent the company Interview by Stephanie Slade from closing up shop. r Longer term, when you have machines that are extremely capable, they can be either misused Medical device fees intentionally or misprogrammed unintention- Small Biz Burden ally and create great harm. Elizabeth Nolan Brown Q: What would you say is the most exciting application of this technology? Oregon seamstress and mother Denelle Philemon A: For me, the most immediate one is in medicine. makes reusable cloth menstrual Medicine is currently more art than science. We pads. Her company, Mother- describe it as the practice of medicine, not the MoonPads, takes pride in “mak- science of medicine. Which is fine, but there is ing things that will last” with a lot of data that people have to bring together high-quality, natural materials. in order to make an appropriate diagnostic But her business almost didn’t and treatment recommendation. With comput- survive 2014, after the U.S. Food ers that can see and read, computers could potentially bring tens of millions of pieces of and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would step up data together and make a good diagnostic or enforcement of regulations that treatment decision. Not only could this make treat reusable pads as “medical Jeremy Howard medicine far more accurate, but most excitingly devices.” for me, it could bring modern medicine to the The pads, which are simply billions of people in the world who currently pieces of sewn-together cloth don’t have access to it because there’s a huge worn in women’s underwear, Jeremy Howard is the founder and CEO of shortage of expertise right now. have officially been classified as Enlitic, a company that uses “machine The other very exciting short-term opportunity medical devices since 1996. As learning” to improve medical diagnostics. is robots. If you take the machine-learning a result, the FDA can force pad In December, he gave a TED Talk on “the algorithm and use it in software attached to manufacturers to register and wonderful and terrifying implications” some kind of “actuators”—engines and grip- pay an annual fee. For 2015, it of an algorithm known as “deep learn- pers and wheels and so forth—that’s what we was $3,646—more than $1,000 ing,” which processes huge amounts of call a robot. And that has the ability to auto- higher than for 2013. The FDA’s data in order to teach itself to understand mate some of the most tedious and dangerous cut will rise again in 2016, to pictures, read words, speak foreign lan- and unpleasant jobs. $3,872. guages, and more. Deputy Managing Edi- Q: You mention that at some point many if not all “I need to make the decision tor Stephanie Slade spoke with Howard in people will not be able to contribute economic whether to…give up on this por- January. value to society anymore. tion of my dream and transition Q: Are computers that can learn a good or A: If we remove the idea of the soul, at some point into selling other products,” a bad thing? Philemon posted on Mother- in history [there’s nothing that] computers and MoonPads’ Facebook page in A: In the last five years [deep learning] machines won’t be able to do at least as well as December, with 2015’s deadline has become about 10,000 times faster us. We can argue about when that will happen. looming and funds running low. and about 10 times more accurate at I think it will be in the next few decades. Ultimately, she pushed enough understanding the content of images. Q: No one will have to work anymore? We’re just starting to see it go down the product to make the money A: Some very large percentage of the world. The and register. But Philemon’s same path at understanding human language. Overall, my expectation vast majority of things that are necessary will case illustrates the burden such have been automated. regulatory fees place on small is that computers are on their way to business owners—and custom- becoming very good at a full range of The question that is actually much more inter- ers. This year, “there will be a perceptual capabilities. esting is: What happens when we’re halfway slight increase in pad prices to Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It there? What happens when the amount of help absorb the yearly FDA reg- just depends how it’s used. It could things that can’t be automated is much smaller istration fee,” notes the Mother- be a wonderful thing, because it could than the amount of people that exist to do MoonPads sales page. allow us to spend our time doing the them? That’s this point where half the world Asked one mommyblogger, things we want to do rather than the can’t add economic value. That means half the “Are…cloth diapers therefore things we have to do, which is, I think, world is destitute and unable to feed them- also medical devices? And what what humanity has been aiming at for selves. So we have to start to allocate some about cloth breast pads that thousands of years. But on the bad wealth on a basis other than the basis of labor protect against leakage during side, that by definition puts people out or capital inputs. The alternative would be to lactation?…Where exactly does of jobs. Eventually, it puts everybody say, “Most of humanity can’t add any economic value, so we’ll just let them die.” the regulation end?” r out of a job.

reason | April 2015 | 11 Columns: Jacob Sullum Charlie Hebdo in the Dock Despite its stand against the terrorist’s veto, France treats offensive words and images as crimes.

On January 11, as more than a mil- In 2006 the Paris Grand Mosque will pass muster, which promotes lion people marched through the and the Union of French Islamic self-censorship. streets of Paris in support of the right Organizations used the ban on reli- Worse, this system teaches people to draw cartoons without being mur- gious insults to sue Charlie Hebdo and that the use of force is an appropriate dered, the French Ministry of Culture its editor at the time, Philippe Val, response to words and images that and Communication declared that over its publication of three cartoons offend—a principle that is poisonous “artistic freedom and freedom of ex- depicting the prophet Muhammad, to free speech and conducive to vio- pression stand firm and unflinching including two that had appeared in lence. Since the French government at the heart of our common European the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has announced that offending the values.” It added that “France and her the previous year. Although Charlie wrong people by saying the wrong allies in the EU safeguard these values Hebdo won the case and Val escaped thing in the wrong context can be and promote them in the world.” prison, the potential for such inqui- treated as a crime, it would not be In the wake of the massacre at the ries inevitably has a chilling effect on surprising if some people, convinced satirical weekly newspaper Charlie freedom of expression. that their rights had been violated Hebdo, perpetrated by men who saw Since the mid-1980s, French and that they could not count on the death as a fitting punishment for the courts have rejected religious-insult courts to vindicate them, resorted to crime of insulting Islam, these were complaints against books, mov- self-help. stirring words. If only they were true. ies, movie posters, and written and Other countries that criminalize Sadly, France and other European oral commentary (including novel- “hate speech,” including Germany, countries continue to legitimize the ist Michel Houellebecq’s 2001 de- the Netherlands, the U.K., Sweden, grievances underlying the barbaric scription of Islam as “the stupidest and Canada, are likewise sending attack on Charlie Hebdo by endorsing religion”). They have been more the dangerous message that offend- the illiberal idea that people have a receptive to complaints about a bill- ing people with words or images is right not to be offended. board lampooning The Last Supper, akin to assaulting them with fists or It is true that France does not pre- a newspaper essay on the purported knives. Instead of facilitating censor- scribe the death penalty for publish- connection between Catholic doc- ship by the sensitive, a government ing cartoons that offend Muslims. But trine and the Holocaust, and remarks truly committed to open debate and under French law, insulting people by the actress Brigitte Bardot and the freedom of speech would make it based on their religion is a crime comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, clear, in no uncertain terms, that of- punishable by a fine of €22,500 and whose shows have been banned as fending Muslims (or any other reli- six months in jail. anti-Semitic. gious group) is not a crime. In addition to religion, that law The point is not that the gov- Sacrilege may upset people, but covers insults based on race, ethnic- ernment has done a bad job of it does not violate their rights. By ity, national origin, sex, sexual orien- distinguishing between legitimate abandoning that distinction, avowed tation, or disability. Defamation (as art or commentary and gratuitous defenders of Enlightenment values opposed to mere insult) based on any offensiveness. In a free society, that capitulate to the forces of darkness. r of those factors is punishable by up is simply not the government’s job. to a year in prison, and so is incite- When courts are asked to draw this Senior Editor Jacob Sullum (jsullum@reason. com) is a nationally syndicated columnist. ment to discrimination, hatred, or line, artists and commentators must Copyright © 2015 Creators Syndicate Inc. violence. try to anticipate whether their work

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This public-service message is from a self-ﬁ nanced, nonproﬁ t group of former students of Mr. Wetherill. Columns: Veronique de Rugy Regulatory Robophobia We don’t need a federal commission to govern things that go beep in the night.

The future is here. Driverless vehicles, ponent of permissionless innovation, a term for drones, machine learning, and other emerging totally unfettered freedom to experiment with technologies offer programmable assistants able new technology and business models coined by to handle mundane tasks and critical life-saving my technology policy colleague at the Mercatus interventions alike. But not everyone is pleased. Center Adam Thierer, either. He wants to regu- The digital Arcadia that awaits us is being fet- late drones; he just thinks the FAA is doing it the tered by the rise of the robophobes. wrong way. In his mind, a FRC would have the Robophobia exists on a continuum. At the narrow focus and specialized expertise needed extreme end are reactionaries who indiscrimi- to effectively protect us. nately look to stifle all that goes beep in the Really, Calo is too kind to the FAA. He night. They call for swift and pre-emptive regu- doesn’t mention most of the questionable drone lations to address any imagined safety or pri- regulations the agency has proposed. The FAA vacy concerns, however unlikely. To the extent has practically stopped innovation in its flight that they can enact their ideas, their mind-set path by proposing to ban all but a handful of is guaranteed to slow the pace of innovation, private-sector drones while the agency com- resulting in countless lost opportunities for eco- pletes rules to govern the rest. Another doozy nomic and social progress—and, yes, even con- was its proposal to require drone pilots to sumer safety and privacy. You’d almost suspect obtain the same license as old-school airplane that this is their unstated goal. pilots, even though they never need set foot on Other cases of robophobia are milder, mani- an aircraft to do their jobs. The FAA’s actions festing, for instance, in proposals for new gov- are badly hindering this exciting new technol- ernment agencies. In a white paper published ogy, and for not-altogether-altruistic reasons. A by the Brookings Institution last September, January 15 story in The Wall Street Journal quotes Ryan Calo, an assistant professor at the Jim Williams, the head of the FAA’s unmanned- University of Washington School of Law, calls aircraft office, bragging about his agency going for a Federal Robotics Commission (FRC). Older to bat for the aerial surveyors, photographers, agencies, he argues, don’t have the expertise to and moviemaking pilots who frequently lobby “deal with the novel experiences and harms ro- him to put the kibosh on commercial drone ac- botics enables.” Furthermore, there are “distinct tivity. “They’ll let us know that, ‘Hey, I’m losing but related challenges that would benefit from all my business to these guys. They’re not ap- being examined and treated together.” Robots, proved. Go investigate,’ ” he explains. “We will he says, “may require investment and coordina- investigate those.” tion to thrive.” Would a robot commission be any better? History suggests that it won’t. This is not the Calo does not have a surreptitious desire to first time a scribbler has proposed a new agency stifle new technologies hidden behind his to oversee an emerging technology. Robophobia policy proposals. He rightfully criticizes the is only the most recent incarnation of a timeless Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its reaction to scientific developments: the desire ham-handed drone policies, calling them “arbi- to control them. trary and non-transparent.” But Calo is no pro- Calo cites the Federal Railroad Administra

14 | reason | April 2015 tion (FRA) as a successful response to documents the many ways the FCC credited as the precursor to the Inter- the scary new phenomenon of travel has mostly served the private internet. In fact, ARPANET’s administrators by train. But actually, the Interstate ests it was supposed to regulate rather actually banned many of the core Commerce Commission was cre- than the “public interest” promoted functions that you and I enjoy today, ated first, in 1887; it was promptly by the likes of Calo. such as online commerce. Thierer, captured by railroad companies and When cable TV came about in the in his 2014 book Permissionless Inno- began promulgating anti-consumer 1960s, the agency moved quickly to vation, quoted from the 1982 hand- regulations on their behalf. The FRA quash it—a naked effort to protect book at MIT’s artificial intelligence was established far later, through the entrenched television broadcasters. lab, which stated: “It is considered same 1966 legislation that brought Regulatory creep became a serious illegal to use the ARPANet for any- us the Department of Transportation problem as the commission expand- thing which is not in direct support (DOT). It is strange but telling that ed its authority into almost every of Government business…Sending Calo offers the FRA and DOT as pro- new telecommunications and media electronic mail over the ARPANet for totypes for a future Federal Robotics service that emerged. Predictably, the commercial profit or political pur- Commission, since both bodies suf- “independent” FCC eventually suc- poses is both anti-social and illegal. fer from rather extreme amounts of cumbed to the very problems that By sending such messages, you can regulatory zealotry, waste, fraud, and Calo’s FRC ostensibly aims to rectify, offend many people, and it is possible abuse. such as being slow and arbitrary and to get MIT in serious trouble with the But there is a more fundamental constantly encroaching on areas it Government agencies which manage reason to object to an FRC. Calo him- isn’t equipped to regulate. the ARPANet.” self claims to favor something more Calo is correct that our existing The modern Internet does not akin to a supervisory body than a for- collection of regulatory agencies is owe its success to a brilliant policy mal regulatory agency, yet he leaves ill-qualified to handle robotics policy. wonk, a series of white papers, or a the door wide open for agency power But adding another group of egg- federal agency tasked with develop- grabs and ever-expanding regula- heads to the mix is doubling down ing a new technology and protecting tion. Bureaucrats almost always act to on the problem rather than offering people from any conceivable harm maximize their spheres of influence. a solution. At a minimum, as Thierer that might arise from it. The oppo- Why wouldn’t this be the case for an writes, “when proposing new agen- site is true: It’s because the Clinton agency tasked with overseeing a lu- cies, you need to get serious about administration decided to break crative new technology like robotics? what sort of institutional constraints with tradition by rejecting top-down, On the flip side, what makes us think you might consider putting in place command-and-control regulations the robotics industry itself would re- to make sure that history does not that the Internet as we know it was frain from doing what so many other repeat itself.” born—a product of human action, not industries have before and working merely of human design. to influenceFRC regulations for its Innovation doesn’t flourish at the Things could easily have been own ends? hands of bureaucrats—even knowl- different. If the overly cautious had edgeable, benevolent, non-robopho- gotten their way, the commercial Regulatory capture is real. Consider bic ones. It’s simply impossible to properties of the Internet may well the Federal Communications Com- anticipate what will happen when have been squelched before we ever mission (FCC) and its war on cable engineers, developers, and consum- knew what we were missing. The television. A recent paper by Thierer ers take new technologies and begin same would be true under a Federal and another technology policy to apply them in novel ways. De- Robotics Commission. Progress re- scholar at the Mercatus Center, Brent partment of Defense engineers and quires us to reject robophobia and Skorup, is a must-read for anyone early users of the agency’s internal feel the digital love. r interested in how robotics might fare ARPANET system never dreamed that in Calo’s world. Titled “A History of the simple packet switching network Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy ([email protected]) is a senior Cronyism and Capture in the Infor- used in a handful of university re- research fellow at the Mercatus Center at mation Technology Sector,” the paper search laboratories would one day be George Mason University.

reason | April 2015 | 15 Columns: Ronald Bailey Let Slip the Robots of War Lethal autonomous weapon systems might be more moral than human soldiers.

Lethal autonomous weapons systems that impossible to instill fundamental legal and can select and engage targets do not yet exist, ethical principles into machines in such a way but they are being developed. Are the ethical as to comply adequately with the laws of war. and legal problems that such “killer robots” The third is that autonomous weapons cannot pose so fraught that their development must be be held morally accountable for their actions. banned? And the fourth is that, since deploying killer Human Rights Watch thinks so. In its 2012 robots removes human soldiers from risk and report, Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer reduces harm to civilians, they make war more Robots, the activist group demanded that the na- likely. tions of the world “prohibit the development, To these objections, law professors Kenneth production, and use of fully autonomous weap- Anderson of American University and Matthew ons through an international legally binding Waxman of Columbia University respond that instrument.” Similarly, the robotics and eth- an outright ban “trades whatever risks autono- ics specialists who founded the International mous weapon systems might pose in war for Committee on Robot Arms Control want “a the real, if less visible, risk of failing to develop legally binding treaty to prohibit the develop- forms of automation that might make the use ment, testing, production and use of autono- of force more precise and less harmful for civil- mous weapon systems in all circumstances.” ians caught near it.” Several international organizations have Choosing whether to kill a human being launched a global Campaign to Stop Killer is the archetype of a moral decision. When Robots and a multilateral meeting under the deciding whether to pull the trigger, a soldier Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons consults his conscience and moral precepts; a was held in Geneva, Switzerland, last year to robot has no conscience or moral instincts. But debate the technical, ethical, and legal implica- does that really matter? “Moral” decision mak- tions of autonomous weapons. “We are con- ing by machines will also occur in non-lethal cerned,” meeting’s organizers say in their Call contexts. Self-driving cars will have to choose to Action, “about weapons that operate on their what courses of action to take when a collision own without human supervision. The campaign is imminent—e.g., to protect their occupants seeks to prohibit taking the human ‘out-of-the- or to minimize all casualties. But deploying loop’ with respect to targeting and attack deci- autonomous vehicles could reduce the carnage sions on the battlefield.” A follow-up meeting is of traffic accidents by as much as 90 percent. scheduled for April 2015. That seems like a significant moral and practical benefit. At first blush, it might seem only sensible to “What matters morally is the ability consis- ban remorseless automated killing machines. tently to behave in a certain way and to a speci- Who wants to encounter the Terminator on fied level of performance,” argue Anderson and the battlefield? Proponents of a ban offer four Waxman. War robots would be no more moral big arguments. The first is that it is morally agents than self-driving cars, yet they may well wrong to delegate life-and-death decisions to offer significant benefits, such as better protect- machines. The second is that it will simply be ing civilians stuck in and around battle zones.

16 | reason | April 2015 But can killer robots be expected to Waxman acknowledge that current point out that traditionally each side obey fundamental legal and ethical robot systems are very far from being in a conflict has been held collective- principles at the level that human able to make such judgments reliably, ly responsible for observing the laws soldiers do? Georgia Tech roboticist but they do not see any fundamental of war. Ultimately, robots don’t kill Ronald Arkin counters that lethal barriers that would prevent such people; people kill people. autonomous weapon systems “will capacities from being developed in- Would the creation of phalanxes potentially be capable of performing crementally. of war robots make the choice to more ethically on the battlefield than go to war too easy? Anderson and are human soldiers.” While human Individual soldiers can be held re- Waxman retort that such reasoning soldiers are moral agents possessed sponsible for war crimes they com- for banning warbots is itself ethically of consciences, they are also flawed mit, but who would be accountable dubious. To the extent that advanced people engaged in the most intense for the similar acts executed by ro- warbots are better at protecting civil- and unforgiving forms of aggres- bots? University of Virginia ethicist ians in a war zone, a ban on those sion. Under the pressure of battle, Deborah Johnson and Royal Nether- machines “morally amounts to hold- fear, panic, rage, and vengeance can lands Academy of Arts and Sciences ing those endangered humans as overwhelm the moral sensibilities of philosopher Merel Noorman make hostages, mere means to pressure po- soldiers; the result, all too often, is an the salient point that “it is far from litical leaders” into desirable policies. atrocity. clear that pressures of competitive The roots of war are much deeper Now consider warbots. Since Under the pressure of than the mere availability of more self-preservation would not be their battle, fear, panic, rage, capable weapons. foremost drive, they would refrain Instead of a comprehensive from firing in uncertain situations. and vengeance can treaty, Waxman and Johnson urge Not burdened with emotions, au- overwhelm the moral countries, especially the United tonomous weapons would avoid the sensibilities of soldiers; States, to eschew secrecy and be open snares of anger and frustration. They the result, all too often, is about their robot development plans could objectively weigh information and progress. Lethal autonomous and avoid confirmation bias when an atrocity. weapon systems are being developed making targeting and firing deci- warfare will lead humans to put incrementally, which gives humanity sions. They could also evaluate infor- robots they cannot control into the time to understand better their ben- mation much faster and from more battlefield without human oversight. efits and costs. sources than human soldiers before And, if there is human oversight, Treaties banning some extremely responding with lethal force. And there is human control and respon- indiscriminate weapons—poison gas, battlefield robots could impartially sibility.” The robots’ designers would landmines, cluster bombs—have had monitor and report the ethical behav- set constraints on what they could do, some success. But autonomous weap- ior of all parties on the battlefield. instill norms and rules to guide their on systems would not necessarily be The baseline decision making actions, and verify that they exhibit like those crude weapons; they could standards instilled into war robots, predictable and reliable behavior. be far more picky and precise in their Anderson and Waxman suggest, “Delegation of responsibility to target selection and engagement than should be derived from the custom- human and non-human components even human soldiers. A pre-emptive ary principles of distinction and pro- is a sociotechnical design choice, not ban risks being a tragic moral failure portionality. Lethal battlefield bots an inevitable outcome of techno- rather than an ethical triumph. r must be able to make distinctions logical development,” Johnson and between combatants and civilians Noorman note. “Robots for which no Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey (rbailey@ reason.com) is the author of the forthcoming and between military and civilian human actor can be held responsible The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in property at least as well as human are poorly designed sociotechnical the 21st Century (St. Martin’s). soldiers do. And the harm to civilians systems.” Rather than focus on indi- must not be excessive relative to the vidual responsibility for the robots’ expected military gain. Anderson and activities, Anderson and Waxman

reason | April 2015 | 17 The Robot Revolution Is Here They’re sweeping my floors, watching my kids, and stealing my job. Here’s why I’m not worried.

Katherine Mangu-Ward

The shiny white robot has a stooped, almost deferential stance as it approaches the Honda employees seated around a table. It turns its black faceplate to the humans, makes an open-handed gesture, and asks if they want anything to drink.

The people all speak simultaneously. What initially seems marketplace, about to enter your home and your like rudeness turns out to be efficiency: ASIMO, the most shopping experience.” advanced humanoid robot on the market, can understand Diamandis is right. Your house, neighbor- multiple voices at once and uses facial recognition soft- hood, and office are already full of the robots ware to match the men with their requests. “Oolong tea, humanity has been waiting for with both antici- Mr. Ohara?” “Coffee, Mr. Oga?” “Milk tea, Mr. Ariizumi?” pation and dread. They may be the equivalent it confirms. They nod, and ASIMO heads off to fill the of trilobites now, but they’re multiplying and orders. mutating rapidly. While pessimists fret that a So far, ASIMO—at least as seen in a 2014 segment on new kind of intelligent automation will mean Japanese public television—appears rather more compe- social, economic, and political upheaval, the tent than the baristas at my local Starbucks, who frequently fact is that the robots are already here and the ask me to repeat my order and haven’t a clue who I am, humans are doing what we have always done despite my semi-regular appearances at the same location in the face of change: anticipating and adapt- for the last six years. But as ASIMO walks away to pick up ing where we can, muddling through where we the drinks, it’s apparent that there’s much work ahead for can’t, and trying to enjoy the ride. Honda’s engineers. The gait of the hobbit-sized machine is slow, with the knees-bent, elbows-out posture of a cau- Domo Arigato, Mr. Roomba tious toddler on unfamiliar turf. Honda claims that ASIMO When it comes to prognostications about the (an acronym for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, robot revolution—and for the purposes of this not a deliberate tribute to the science fiction novelist Isaac article, we’ll take an expansive view of what con- Asimov, the company insists) comes equipped with a colli- stitutes a robot, lumping together a wide vari- sion avoidance system, but that too is on par with a 2-year- ety of automated digital and mechanical depu- old—everything is fine when nearby people are moving ties—Roombas are frequently asked to shoulder slowly and making allowances for the fledgling bot, but more than their fair share of the burden. Semi- Mr. Ohara, Mr. Oga, and Mr. Ariizumi would be very thirsty autonomous vacuums are the most visible robots indeed if they trusted ASIMO to pick up their drinks and on the market, with more than 10 million sold carry them down a busy city street at rush hour. worldwide at the end of last year. They look like Watching Honda’s latest shuffle along creates a kind of the devices science fiction told us to expect: stand- vertigo. The robot revolution seems simultaneously upon alone machines that perform tasks on behalf of us—look, a real robot serving coffee!—and eons away. But human beings, integrated into everyday life. that dissonance is a clue that we are nestled in the elbow of But if we’re being honest, they’re also a bit an exponential curve. All around us, a Cambrian explosion of a letdown. Anyone willing to fork over a few of robotics is taking place, writes Peter Diamandis, chair- hundred bucks to the iRobot Corporation can man of the X Prize Foundation, at Singularity Hub, “with have a machine zip out from under his sofa— species of all sizes, shapes and modes of mobility crawling that’s where mine lives, anyway—and vacuum out of the muck of the lab and onto the terra firma of the his house from time to time. It’s oddly hypnotic

A 2013 Oxford study looked at 702 occupations and found that nearly half of

U.S. employment faces the risk of being Co.) Motor Honda (Courtesy

eliminated in favor of computerization. And ASIMO it’s already underway. Previous page: page: Previous

20 | reason | April 2015 to watch the device in action, as it deftly avoids population of industrial robots at more than 1.1 million in falling down stairs, extricates itself from rug tas- 2013, making robots a well-established component of U.S. sels and tight spots, and handily routes around manufacturing. chair legs. But it’s just a vacuum cleaner, after But the more interesting (and less well understood) all: a slightly smarter version of the dishwash- phenomenon is the advent of robot replacements for jobs ers, washing machines, and microwaves we take long considered immune from mechanization, particularly for granted. And like ASIMO, the Roomba seems the service functions that make up a significant part of our remarkably capable at some tasks and aston- day-to-day interactions. ishingly inept at others, as when it accidentally Speaking at the conservative American Enterprise bumps the door of the bathroom closed and then Institute in March, Bill Gates hinted that a little freaking bounces around for hours, mindlessly cleaning out might be in order: “Software substitution, whether it’s the same tiny space until its battery dies. for drivers or waiters or nurses, [is] progressing.…Twenty Then there’s the matter of the human main- years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will tenance required by our robot servants. The be substantially lower. I don’t think people have that in Roomba will go find its charging station when their mental model.” A September 2013 study from Oxford it needs more power (unless it’s locked in the University looked at 702 occupations and found that 47 half bath, of course). But it requires a person to percent of total U.S. employment faces the risk of being empty the reservoir when it’s full of dirt and to eliminated in favor of computerization. periodically clean the moving parts. I’m terrible But this isn’t the stuff of a misty, menacing future. at taking care of my Roomba—I haven’t changed It’s already underway. The Botlr robot, deployed in some the filters, well, ever—which generates a vague properties of the Starwood hotel chain, delivers extra tow- sense of guilt, as if I am mistreating a pet. In els and forgotten toiletries to hotel guests. Having a robot fact, extracting small objects from its bristles show up with your missing items sounds much better than when they get caught feels surprisingly similar awkwardly answering the door with your bare legs sticking to the act of yanking a chicken bone from the out of the bottom of a hotel robe with a couple of crumpled mouth of a disobedient puppy. Small mammals dollar bills awkwardly clutched in your hand. love Roombas—YouTube offers an entire genre Singapore’s Timbre restaurant group signed a deal in of “Roomba rodeo” videos, in which babies, November to bring flying Infinium-Serve robot waiters cats, and small dogs glide around on the backs to their five locations in the labor-crunched country. The of the motorized discs—but the expensive robots would deliver food and drink—acting as propel- machines are not meant to be used as carnival lered busboys, but not fully replacing waiters and bartend- rides and are easily damaged, requiring yet more ers, who would continue to be tasked with “higher-value intervention. These 10 million vacuums don’t tasks such as getting feedback from customers,” CEO Woon exactly seem poised to gain sentience and take Joonyang said in a press release. The Consumer Electronics over the planet. Association predicts that commercial sales of unmanned Still, having a Roomba means that I spend aerial vehicles will reach $130 million in revenue in 2015, less time cleaning up crushed snack-food items— up 55 percent from last year, putting 400,000 units into or less money employing someone else to per- the skies. form that task. Does the fact that a machine While unemployment rates have fallen to 5.6 percent instead of a person is lowering the Cheerio-load and financial markets have largely recovered from the in my carpet mean it’s time to start freaking out recession, ordinary people share the intuition that technol- about the future of employment? ogy may be to blame for some unpleasant economic under- currents, including high joblessness rates among young

(Courtesy Honda Motor Co.) Motor Honda (Courtesy The Automation Jobless people, record numbers of Americans who say they have

ASIMO When we talk about robots taking jobs, strong stopped looking for work, and expanded disability rolls. A hydraulic arms looming over factory assembly December New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foun- lines is what comes most readily to mind. The dation poll of unemployed 25- to 54-year-olds found that

Previous page: page: Previous International Federation of Robotics put the 37 percent of those who said they wanted a job believed

reason | April 2015 | 21 Jobless.” As economist Timothy Taylor points out on his Conversable Economist blog, the text could have been plucked from this week’s issue of the magazine. “While no one has yet sorted out the jobs lost because of the overall drop in business from those lost through automation and other technological changes, many a labor expert tends to put much of the blame on automation,” the 1961 essay intones. “Throughout industry, the trend has been to bigger production with a smaller work force.…Many of the losses in factory jobs have been countered by an increase in the service industries or in office jobs. But automation is beginning to move in and eliminate office jobs too.…In the past, new industries hired far more people than those they put out of business. But this is not true of many of today’s new industries.” Politicians took up the refrain then, just as they do now. In the famous speech where he vowed to put a man on the Moon, President John F. Kennedy delivered a line that could have been dropped into Obama’s State of the Union this year verbatim: “I am therefore transmitting to the Congress a new Manpower and Training Development program to train or retrain several hundred thousand workers particularly in those areas where we have seen chronic unemploy- technology was a reason they did not have one. ment as a result of technological factors and In his 2012 book Coming Apart, political scientist new occupational skills over a four-year period, Charles Murray charts a widening gulf between the white in order to replace those skills made obsolete by upper and lower classes between 1960 and 2010. Murray automation and industrial change with the new sees some of the few occupations left bridging the gap— skills which the new processes demand.” low-skilled white-collar jobs, for instance—disappearing Yet the legacy of the 1960s is not one of thanks to automation. Jobs like phone operators, once upon apocalyptic unemployment and social break- a time, and tax preparers or travel agents more recently. down. As Taylor notes: “The U.S. unemployment Holding back automation is impossible, says Murray: rate had declined back to the range of 5.0 per- “This is not something where you can artificially subsidize cent by August 1964, but concerns over how the people to become buggywhip makers.” But thanks to our U.S. economy might adapt to technology and unimpressive education system, he argues, Americans are automation remained serious enough that Presi- less well-equipped to flexibly handle change than they once dent Lyndon Johnson signed into law a National were—and anyway, the latest round of automation isn’t Commission on Technology, Automation, and creating new jobs the way previous advances in industri- Economic Progress. The Commission eventually alization once did. The upshot: an even faster social and released its report in February 1966. When the political bifurcation. unemployment rate had fallen to 3.8 percent.” Fretting about the impact of automation on employment is a time-honored tradition. In 1961, after 10 months I, Babysitter

of recession, Time published a story on “The Automation I’m not leaving my kids with the Roomba when I Press) xuejun-Imaginechina/Associated (Hu China in waiter Robot

22 | reason | April 2015 go out, no matter how much they love it. But I’m heavily automated. The pilot and first mate are increasingly perfectly happy to deputize a robot sitter from there just for show, and they may soon vanish as driverless time to time. Like so many overanxious yup- cars acclimate the population to the idea of vehicles with- pie parents, I keep a small video camera in my out humans at the helm. (very young) children’s bedroom. The Dropcam is WiFi enabled, so I can check it from anywhere, Bot, You Can Drive My Car including my phone. I can also set it to alert me if Driverless cars are often cited as the Typhoid Mary of the there is unusual noise or movement in the room. coming robot plague. But for now, Uber and other car ser- What that means is that I can stretch the bound- vice apps are great examples of technological change gener- aries of being “at home” with the kids to include ating more jobs, while simultaneously creating a consumer dinner at the next-door neighbor’s house or even surplus as customers buy superior goods and services for the Italian restaurant on the corner—anywhere a lower price. Data released by the company in January I can (a) see my house to make sure it’s not on showed that Uber drivers were earning more than their fire and (b) get home quickly. This $99 Internet- professional taxi driving counterparts—with take home pay enabled, infrared, motion-sensitive digital eye- as high as $17 an hour in Washington and Los Angeles, $23 ball has put a sitter out of a job on more than in San Francisco, and $30 in New York. one occasion, when I have happily deployed a All of these services may someday be fully automated. machine to keep watch on my kids in marginal Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has made no secret of the fact circumstances when a human being would pre- that he plans to replace human drivers with self-driving viously have been necessary. cars as soon as possible. But for now, new tech is generating People with single-level houses and a lit- new kinds of human jobs that are arguably better than the tle more cash to spare can do more than just similar ones they replaced, even as the supposedly menac- watch their kids sleep. They can actually fol- ing robots crowd in around us. low them around the house and nag them to do All 2015 models of the Tesla S come equipped with their homework or eat their peas using one of enough features to constitute an autopilot mode: Thanks to several telepresence robots now on the market. radar, ultrasonic sonar, a camera with image recognition, The general phenotype of these machines is GPS, and more, the car boasts adaptive cruise control that something like an iPad mounted on a Segway. adjusts to the speed of traffic, the ability to read speed limit Products like the Double, Beam, and Kubi—all signs and stay in its lane, self-parking (both parallel and of which are currently available for purchase garage), and self-stopping if a crash is about to occur. Many —let a person who is not in the room act like of these features are already standard in other luxury car he’s there. That means less work not just for brands as well. A significant percentage of cars on the road babysitters but also for airline pilots, as telepres- could pilot themselves much of the time if we let them—and ence becomes increasingly common in offices increasingly we are letting them—which makes the hand- as well. wringing about self-driving cars seem both premature and Of course, the act of flying a plane is itself a case of too little, too late.

With the rise of smartphones and broad band, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen says, an unprecedented number of people will be able to do new, impressive, resourceful, economically stimulating things. Robot waiter in China (Hu xuejun-Imaginechina/Associated Press) xuejun-Imaginechina/Associated (Hu China in waiter Robot

reason | April 2015 | 23 Transformers: Robots in Disguise? letter itself is vague, but Musk has called A.I. Marc Andreessen, who invented the Web browser and is a “demon” that is “potentially more dangerous now a leading venture capitalist, has taken to Twitter and than nuclear weapons.” And other Future of Life his blog to decry automation alarmism. He writes that the Institute documents fret about how to ensure fear “robots are going to eat all of the jobs” is a prime exam- that A.I.s use weapons systems or surveillance ple of the “‘lump of labor’ fallacy—the idea that there is a cameras appropriately. fixed amount of work to be done.” With the rise of smartphones and broadband, he says, an unprecedented number Laser Eyeballs and Hamburgers of people have access to the means of production. And it’s Back in 2002, when LASIK was still in its infancy, crazy to think they won’t do new, impressive, resourceful, I went under the laser to get my atrocious vision economically stimulating things with those tools. corrected—it was a graduation present from The “this time is different” argument, Andreessen con- my parents. Even then, the surgery itself was tinues, contains the subtext “there won’t be new ideas, almost entirely automated. I realized the doctor fields, industries, businesses, and jobs. In arguing this with wasn’t doing anything even remotely related to an economist friend, his response was, ‘But most people are the actual procedure when she started chatting like horses; they have only their manual labor to offer…’ with me about the best place to get a burger in I don’t believe that, and I don’t want to live in a world in New Haven while the smell of burning eyeball which that’s the case. I think people everywhere have far filled the air. More than 20 million people have more potential.” Andreessen isn’t alone. In February, the had the same experience, though for many of University of Chicago asked economists if they thought them the recall of the experience may be blurred that automation had historically decreased employment. slightly by Ativan or other anti-anxiety meds, Some 76 percent agreed that it had not. typically administered to people who are ner- But Tesla’s Elon Musk and others have pushed back, vous about letting a robot shoot lasers into their arguing that the economic threat is compounded by a more eyes. serious existential threat from artificial intelligence (A.I.). Medical robots have gotten a whole lot The Future of Life Institute released an open letter in 2014, smarter since then. Watson, which you most with an impressive list of signatories including Musk, phys- likely know as the IBM Jeopardy champ, has icist Stephen Hawking, and actors Morgan Freeman and turned its attention to human anatomy. To kick Alan Alda, expressing concerns about the rise of A.I. “The off its medical education, Watson “read” all of potential benefits are huge, since everything that civiliza- PubMed and Medline, two enormous databases tion has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we can- of medical journals. In March 2012, Memo- not predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is rial Sloan Kettering agreed to allow Watson to magnified by the toolsAI may provide, but the eradication consume tens of thousands of cancer patient’s of disease and poverty are not unfathomable. Because of records. Forbes reported in 2013 that Watson had the great potential of AI, it is important to research how analyzed 605,000 pieces of medical evidence, 2 to reap its benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls.” The million pages of text, and 25,000 training cases

The robot-ridden future may sound vaguely terrifying, but it’s unlikely to be terribly different from the robot-ridden present. You are already the commander of a tiny but powerful robot army.

24 | reason | April 2015 and had the assistance of 14,700 clinician hours created. Another company, Journatic, offers a different kind fine-tuning its decision accuracy. Watson’s skills of computer generated copy: hyperlocal news. Bots extract as a diagnostician are already outdoing human information from publicly available data sources, such doctors in some areas, including detecting lung as real estate transaction records and press releases, and cancer, where Watson’s 90 percent success rate is recombine the information into the form of a traditional much better than humans’ 50 percent. news article, which can then be reproduced in local broad- After Watson diagnoses a problem, using sheets, neighborhood supplements, and websites. But the natural language inputs from human clinicians company also employs human copy editors to clean up the as well as diagnostic images and the patient’s text, bring it into conformity with Associated Press style, medical history, its client could be turned over and generally check the computers’ work. In 2012, the com- to one of the more than 3,000 da Vinci surgical pany got in trouble for putting fake bylines on its content, robots in hospitals worldwide. The robots are something it quickly agreed not to do again. We might like controlled by a human surgeon who is typically to think a person wrote the story we’re reading, but when in the same room as the patient, but have the it comes down to it, some newspapers—and readers—are precision and extrasensory capacity to make sur- already willing to let that illusion go for the sake of the geries—particular hysterectomies and prostate bottom line. removals, where they are most commonly used— less invasive and more accurate. Welcoming Our Robot Brethren The robot-ridden future may sound vaguely terrifying, but Working Their Way Up From Getting Coffee it’s unlikely to be terribly different from the robot-ridden In January, Persado Inc. raised $21 million in present. You are already the commander of a tiny but pow- venture capital. The company has created soft- erful robot army. In lieu of hiring human beings or doing ware that replaces copywriters—when Verizon the work yourself, your bots do your banking, cleaning, wants to get a customer to renew their contract, babysitting, letter writing, and more. Perhaps your job will for instance, Persado helps craft an email that is disappear, but a new one—one you probably can’t imagine calibrated to maximize the chances of success, any more than an 18th century farmer could imagine an I.T. strategically deploying key words and creating support tech—will emerge. appealing financial deals. But the emails also Soon we will find it jarring to discover a flesh-and- play on emotion, choosing whether to threaten blood person doing tasks that were once “impossible to a customer with a lost opportunity or gratefully automate.” Is it ever good news when you need to talk thank them for their continued business. And it to a bank teller in person or “speak to a representative” seems to work: Citi, a Persado customer, told The about something that’s not on an automated phone menu? Wall Street Journal that the tool has increased the Getting and giving directions has ceased to be a point rate at which emails are opened by 70 percent. of tension or confusion; ubiquitous, traffic-savvy GPS has The clickrate inside the emails has gone up by 114 it covered. It’s not that people will interact less; it’s that percent over human-crafted missives. we will be forced to transact less. As our machines take Should I fear for my job? After all, it’s just a care of more business, we will be free to pursue other hop, skip, and jump from heart-tugging ad copy things. It may be unnerving to talk to someone about all- to readable magazine features, right? Maybe. But beef patties while they oversee a surgical procedure on an buried in the coverage of the significant invest- important body part, but I’d still rather have that procedure ment was this little tidbit: CEO Alex Vratskides done by a competent, consistent machine than by a per- says the new V.C. money will be used to expand son. The day is fast approaching when you will sigh with Persado’s salesforce. Which consists of humans relief to see ASIMO or a drone busboy—not a messy, fallible, who win over other humans as customers by inattentive human being—headed toward your table in a showing them how much better computers can restaurant. r be at the jobs where they are currently employing humans. Katherine Mangu-Ward ([email protected]) is managing editor at As some jobs fall by the wayside, others are reason.

reason | April 2015 | 25

Sex, Love, and Robots Will sexbots make human life better, creepier, or both? Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Her joints are “a bit tight and creaky.” Her head “The world better be prepared, because circumference is smaller than expected, and there’s love dolls are coming.” “a slight chemical smell again.” But “Mr-Smith” is Katie Aquino, a futurist and self-pro- mostly proud to introduce Page to other members of claimed techno-optimist who goes by the the message boards at DollForum.com. And they are name “Miss Metaverse” online, agrees that happy to meet her, too: “Glad to see such an awesome sex dolls and sex robots are poised to go lady of mystery!” one responds. “Have a fantastic big. But Aquino doesn’t think improved honeymoon,” types another. “Congratulations, she industrial tech will be the main force driv- is a beauty,” posts a third. “When you get around to ing the growth. Instead, she thinks hobby- completely introducing yourself to her, you will find ists are the future: “I believe that the first that her softness will blow your mind.” truly lifelike sex dolls won’t be made in fac- Page is what’s known as a “love doll” or “sex tories, they’ll be made in people’s garages. doll.” She is “anatomically correct”—that is, built so Sex robots will be made by makers,” she people can penetrate her—but she doesn’t move on says, using a catchall term for the growing her own or speak. There are at least a dozen high- do-it-yourself subculture in everything

end doll makers globally, and many more making from 3D printing to mead brewing. And

.com/Newscom) cheaper models. “Even China is getting into it…in a she’s mostly on board with this: “New sex- WENN / year’s time China has gone from being non-existent ual technologies will liberate us, allowing ZOB 2/ CB in the doll market to having like 15 different manu- us humans to freely express our desires and facturers,” artist Stacy Leigh, who styles and photo- fantasies while remaining safe and healthy

Roxxxy sex robot ( robot sex Roxxxy graphs these dolls, told Acclaim magazine in 2013. from the comfort of our homes.”

reason | April 2015 | 27 But Aquino also worries about possibilities academics at this point. But in the not-too-distant future it like “a population decline because more people will become much less hypothetical for billions of people. will choose synthetic relationships over ‘organic’ We are drawing ever closer to the era of realistic, afford- human relationships” and human women “com- able, emotionally intelligent robots, including sex robots. paring themselves to synthetics and therefore These have the potential to change not just how we relate choosing to modify themselves, just as we see to technology but how we relate to one another. The chal- how Photoshopped models and celebrities affect lenge: How can we make robots part of our social/sexual women today.” Some men are already predicting fabric without letting them remake us? this day with glee, crowing on blogs and Reddit boards that human women will have to lower Meet the Sexbots their expectations, step up their beauty rituals, or Contemporary commercial sex dolls can appear quite life- face the fact that many men will find sex robots like, but they’re mostly non-robotic. The dolls, produced by a “better option.” companies such as California-based RealDoll and Japan’s On the other end of the spectrum, you have Orient Industry, tend to be made from silicone and a metal people like Sinziana Gutiu, whose presentation skeleton and weigh as much as 120 pounds. Depending on at the 2012 We Robot conference focused on the company, dolls can be customized in a variety of ways, how artificially intelligent sexbots could “foster from hair and eye color to pubic hair style, plus the addition antisocial behavior in users and promote the of features like artificial milk glands. Some offer simulated idea that women are ever-consenting beings, breathing, pulse, and heartbeat. leading to diminished consent in male-female One of the few existing robotic sex dolls appears to be sexual interaction.” In other words, she thinks Roxxxy, from New Jersey–based TrueCompanion. With sex robots may lead to more rape. an appearance akin to an especially lifelike (yet not espe- By promoting “lies about women’s human- cially attractive) store mannequin, Roxxxy is in no danger ity,” sexbots present “a danger that builds on of being mistaken for human. But she has three “inputs” and surpasses the harms attributed to pornog- (mouth, vagina, and anus), according to TrueCompanion’s raphy,” Gutiu wrote in her conference paper. In website, and the deluxe model boasts five programmable this she joined the laments of social conserva- personalities, including Young Yoko, described on the com- tives. “Sodom and Gomorrah never dreamed of pany’s website as “oh so young and waiting for you to teach sexual immorality like this,” Jennifer LeClaire her,” and S&M Susan, “ready to provide your pain/pleasure wrote last year in the Christian magazine Cha- fantasies.” Roxxxy and her male counterpart, Rocky, are risma. Dave Swindle, an associate editor at the billed as responsive companions able to “listen, talk, carry conservative/libertarian site PJ Media, asked, on a conversation, and feel your touch.” Owners can pur- “What happens when a bunch of teenage boys portedly program them with likes, dislikes, and foreign pool their money to buy a robot prostitute they languages, as well as upload their “personalities” to the can gang rape?…What will our world be when cloud. people lose their virginity to a machine?” Roxxxy’s renown has been wide since her debut at a Is that last option even possible? Virginity 2010 adult-entertainment expo, garnering mentions every- is more a social construct than a physical state; where from tech blogs to the BBC. But many in the love-doll we don’t say someone whose hymen breaks community are skeptical that TrueCompanion has ever using a Tampax or whose penis enters a Flesh- sold any robots. light have “lost their virginity” to tampons and Davecat, 41, is one such person. A “Synthetik advo- sex toys. But it’s this rather outlandish hypo- cate,” Davecat is part of a group known as the iDollators, thetical that gets us to the crux of the issue: Will who say they prefer sex dolls and robots to intimacy with sex robots be more like vibrators, pets, partners, “Organiks,” a.k.a. human beings. Davecat lives with three or slaves? dolls, whom he has named Sidore, Elena, and Muriel. He That question—and how technologists, has made up personalities and created Twitter accounts for potential customers, ethicists, and legislators each of them. will answer it—is mostly the concern of a few Davecat was there for Roxxxy’s debut, and he was

28 | reason | April 2015 We are drawing ever closer to an era of realistic, affordable, emotionally intelligent robots. This has the potential to change not just how we relate to technology but how we relate to one another.

not impressed. The product “fell far short of everyone’s users (known or unknown) from around the expectations,” he says. “Robots by definition are capable of world, the ultimate fulfillment of the ancient movement, which Roxxxy was incapable of.” He and fellow promise of the AOL chatroom. iDollators found Roxxxy too heavy and visually unappeal- Meanwhile, those whose tastes are more ing, with “the guts of a laptop.” And though advertised as technologically advanced must make do. Aquino the “first” sex doll responsive to stimulus, the Japanese doll says “a significant number of robosexuals, those company Axis Japan was already using the same sort of who are attracted to robots, choose to partner technology—sensors that trigger various MP3s to play when with love dolls like RealDolls because they are a doll is touched in different places. limited by today’s embryonic sex robot indus- “Essentially, Hines had his prototype and was attempt- try.” ing to catch the eye of potential investors, so he could build Count Davecat among that cohort. “All told, more and cash in on the perceived trend of robosexual- I’d rather have a Gynoid than a Doll,” he says in ity,” Davecat says. “None have been sold, TrueCompanion an email, using the technical term for a female haven’t really existed since roughly 2011, and Hines is a humanoid robot. “Dolls are fantastic, but realis- charlatan. The contemporary media picked up on the story, tically speaking, they can only do so much, and but it was much ado about nothing.” Hines did not respond with a completely Synthetik lover, I’d have all to requests for comment. the opportunities that are afforded in relation- “Today’s sex robot industry is underwhelming,” agrees ships with Organiks, but without all the drama.” Aquino. “A new techno-sexual revolution is upon us,” she The sex doll company Orient Industry explains, but it’s currently focused on technologies like announced in 2014 that it has developed skin teledildonics and virtual reality, which are “converging to “not distinguishable from the real thing.” Sex bring sexual fantasies to life while allowing users to par- robots could eventually be imbued with an ticipate in sexual activities safely and without risk of STDs.” almost real-time capability to “respond” to The main thrust of “teledildonics” has been to combine touch. Gerhard Fettweis, a professor of com- things we conventionally think of as sex toys with hap- munications technology at Dresden University, tic interfaces that allow users to “touch” and be touched believes that within 20 years wireless technol- remotely. Long-distance lovers, for instance, could use ogy will match the speed of the human neural teledildonics to have robot-mediated sex, in combination system. Some have proposed the idea of sex- with such technologies as shared virtual reality, webcams, bots that mimic humans’ biochemical signaling or even old-fashioned phone calls. Users hooked up to system, releasing pheromones corresponding to virtual-reality headsets such as Oculus Rift could “partici- arousal and love at the appropriate times. pate” in porn or virtual erotic worlds. Simple teledildon- At the start of 2015, however, roboticists ics include things like Mojowijo, a set of paired vibrator are still struggling with problems like making attachments for the Wii, and OhMiBod, a vibrator that can autonomous humanoid robots that can walk be controlled remotely via an iPhone app. A website called and move their faces realistically. Last summer, Kiiroo allows teledildonics users to hook up with other the National Museum of Emerging Science and

reason | April 2015 | 29 Innovation in Tokyo debuted a girl and woman that we will do the same with social robots as they become android, Kodomoroid and Otonaroid, to much increasingly commonplace. fanfare. The robots are used to greet and read The human inclination to anthropomorphize animals news to museum visitors and hold press confer- “translates remarkably well to autonomous robots,” Dar- ences announcing new robots. They can make ling noted in her 2012 paper, “Extending Legal Rights to facial expressions and move their upper bod- Social Robots.” A robot that can mimic human behavior, ies, but they can’t walk and can only lip-sync social gestures, and facial expressions “targets our invol- recorded speech. Convincingly human, emo- untary biological responses.” tionally intelligent androids of the kind seen in In 2013 Julie Carpenter, a psychology researcher at sci-fi are, for now, far more fantasy than reality. the University of Washington, interviewed 23 U.S. soldiers working with bomb-disarming robots. While the troops How Much Is That Robot in the Window? defined the robots as technological tools, they were still In a 2014 paper, the Brown University psycholo- given to naming them, gendering them, and talking about gist Bertram Malle and Matthias Scheutz, direc- them with empathy. “They would say they were angry tor of the Human-Robot Interaction Laboratory when a robot became disabled because it is an important at Tufts University, defined social robots as “any tool, but then they would add ‘poor little guy,’ or they’d say robots that collaborate with, look after, or help they had a funeral for it,” Carpenter explained in a state- humans.” Kate Darling, a robot ethics researcher ment about her work. with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology In a 2007 study from the University of California, San (MIT), prefers the wordier “a physically embod- Diego, toddlers introduced to the humanoid robot QRIO ied, autonomous agent that communicates and quickly lost interest when the robot merely danced con- interacts with humans on an emotional level.” tinually. But when dancing and giggling were triggered by Social robots, according to Darling, can also “fol- their touch—when the robot was responsive in a human- low social behavior patterns, have various ‘states like way—“that completely changed everything,” study of mind,’ and adapt to what they learn through leader Javier Movellan said in a press release. their interactions.” Sexbots, of course, would It is this illusion of agency that helps endear social bots fall squarely in this category. So would robots to human beings. Social robots are designed to elicit anthro- designed to interact with nursing home patients pomorphic reactions. “There are many of us in the robotics and robot pets. community that study not just robots but human psychol- Early examples of social robo-pets include ogy,” says Ron Arkin, an American roboticist and roboethi- Furbies and Tamagotchi, which lived on tiny cist who teaches at the Georgia Institute of Technology. To screens on key rings and alerted owners when Arkin, the central question is: “Can we effectively design they needed food or bathing. The Roomba, an robots to interact with people in the way that people want autonomous robot vacuum cleaner that has sold to be interacted with? And that involves understanding the millions since 2002, is considered a primitive human mind as well as the robotic mind.” social robot. Robotic puppies, seals, and other People bond with pets in part because we like things animals are now being tested to interact with that seem to need us. This trait transcends flesh and blood. nursing home residents and autistic children, “Nurturing a machine that presents itself as dependent cre- with promising anecdotal results. ates significant social attachments,” wrote theMIT scholar Human beings love their pets, in large part, Sherry Turkle in her 2006 paper “A Nascent Robotics Cul- because of our deep tendency toward anthropo- ture.” Turkle found people are prone both to nurturing morphism: the imputation of human-like quali- feelings toward autonomous robots and to believing, at ties onto animals and nonliving things. Anthro- least on some level, that robots reciprocate these feelings. pomorphizing a pet doesn’t require believing So is this something we should worry about? Projection the pet is fundamentally human, it just means onto traditional objects can be ignored and revived at will, its personality and behavior inspires humans noted Darling. But an artificially intelligent robot “that to treat it like a person with complex desires, demands attention by playing off of our natural responses motivations, or memories. It is a near certainty may cause a subconscious engagement that is less volun-

30 | reason | April 2015 A Japanese anthology published in the late 1600s refers to Koshoku Tabimakura, a “traveling pillow” with a “woman substitute” made from thin layers of tortoiseshell lined with velvet, silk, or leather.

tary.” Scientists and ethicists alike are exploring where to the hair on the head, the body hair, the teeth, the draw lines. Is it wrong, for instance, to “trick” dementia nails! There’s the skin, which has to be given a patients into caring for robo-pets? certain tint, certain contours, a particular pattern Right now, social robots’ potential benefits for every- of veins.…The only thing these haven’t got is the thing from elder care to education seem to outweigh ethi- power of speech!” cal concerns. But right now, intelligent and autonomous In 1908, the German doctor Iwan Bloch robots don’t exist. In “The Inherent Dangers of Unidirec- wrote of “hommes or dames de voyage,” the tional Emotional Bonds Between Humans and Robots,” “artificial imitations of the human body, or of Matthias Scheutz raises concerns that robot companions individual parts of the body” sold in France with will have the ability to “exploit human innate emotional “genital organs represented in a manner true to mechanisms that have evolved in the context of mutual nature.” Dames were equipped with oil-filled reciprocity…which robots will (not have to) meet.” pneumatic tubes, the hommes an apparatus by What are the potential repercussions of this? “Unfor- which “the ejaculation of the semen is imitated.” tunately, there is currently very little work aimed at trying By the 1920s, customizable sex dolls were adver- to minimize the natural human tendency to anthropo- tised “fitted with a phonographic attachment, morphize,” Scheutz tells me. “The key question is how to recording and speaking at will.” walk the fine line between making robots useful to people Though perhaps some were attracted to the without having them fall for robots.” dolls, these were largely considered masturba- tory devices, or in some cases a tribute to a dead Before Roomba and Roxxxy loved one. Will sex robots be similarly func- While coverage of Roxxxy and her sisters tends to focus on tional, or will they provoke desire in their own the unprecedented nature of “lifesized robot girlfriends,” right? creating convincing facsimiles of human beings in order “Right now, we’re at an inflection point on to masturbate into them is actually an ancient pursuit. the meaning of sexbot,” Kyle Machulis, a sys- A Japanese anthology published in the late 1600s refers tems engineer with Mozilla, told Aeon magazine to Koshoku Tabimakura, a “traveling pillow,” with an azu- last summer. “Tracing the history of the term magata (“woman substitute”) made from thin layers of will lead you to a fork: robots for sex (ideal- tortoiseshell lined with velvet, silk, or leather. The dolls ized version: Jude Law in the movie AI), and were also known as tahi-joro, or “traveling whores.” In people that fetishize being robots (clockworks, the 1904 book Les Detraques de Paris (which loosely trans- etc.). There was a crossover in the days of alt. lates as The Paris Crazies), Rene Schwaeble quotes “Dr. P,” sex.fetish.robots, but I see less and less people who sold “fornicatory dolls” (though he had to pretend to fetishizing the media/aesthetics, and more talk- police he made balloon animals) for around 3,000 francs ing about actually having sex with robots.” apiece in French catalogues. “Every one of them takes at In a survey of 61 DollForum.com members least three months of my work!” said Dr. P. “There’s the —75 percent men who own dolls, 10 percent interior framework which is carefully articulated, there’s women who own dolls, and 15 percent men

reason | April 2015 | 31 thinking about purchasing a doll—the psychol- the actor, rather than a specific victim or society. The fact ogy researcher Sarah Valverde asked owners that a robot itself can’t feel pain or be exploited may not what motivated their purchase. Not-mutually- stop pushes to prohibit particular uses of or behavior exclusive answers included sexual stimulation toward social robots. (70 percent), companionship (30 percent), and “The Kantian philosophical argument for preventing using the doll in sex with a human partner (17 cruelty to animals is that our actions towards non-humans percent). About a third of male owners reported reflect our morality—if we treat animals in inhumane ways, some issues with sexual functioning. Most rated we become inhumane persons,” noted Darling in her paper their sex with dolls as “above average” to “excel- “The Rights of Social Robots.” “This logically extends to lent.” robot companions. Granting them protection may encour- None of the respondents were in therapy age us and our children to behave in a way that we gener- related to their relationship with the sex dolls. ally regard as morally correct.” Most were employed, educated, and reported In her We Robot conference paper, Gutiu suggests that, similar anxiety and depression levels as the gen- “if regulated,” we may be able to use sex robots “to cor- eral population. While the use of sex dolls is rect violent and demeaning attitudes toward women.” But often seen as pathological, Valverde makes the this sort of large-scale social-engineering-through-sexbot case that “a diagnosis of paraphilia would be could quash the potential for their more individualized use unwarranted, without significant distress or in rehabilitation. impairment in functioning. Provided a doll- Levy imagines a role for sex robots similar to sex surro- owner doesn’t need the sex doll in order to gates, therapists who use actual sexual intimacy to address achieve sexual satisfaction, a diagnosis of a clients’ issues. “All of the most common sexual dysfunc- fetish would not be appropriate” either. “Anec- tions and their cases can be treated by surrogate-partner dotal evidence suggests these dolls have brought therapy, including premature ejaculation, nonconsumma- relief, security, and happiness to their owners,” tion of a relationship, erection difficulties, performance she concluded. anxiety, and fear of intimacy,” he explains in Sex + Love In his 2007 book Love + Sex with Robots, the With Robots. The book cites the California sex therapist artificial intelligence specialist David Levy—a Barbara Roberts, who laments that “we have no traditional former professional chess player and now presi- rite of passage nor meaningful ceremonies to initiate young dent of the International Computer Games Asso- people into informed adult sexuality”—a role Levy also ciation—pinpoints 11 major triggers that inspire envisions for sexbots. emotions humans recognize as love. Many of And then there’s the inevitable question of kiddie sex- these factors could presumably be inspired by bots. social robots, including proximity, reciprocal Last summer, at a Berkeley Law School panel on ethical liking (liking things that like us), need-fulfill- and legal challenges in robotics, Arkin spawned a flurry of ment, a sense of mystery, and the presence of sensational headlines by suggesting that “childlike robots certain desired characteristics (like red hair or a could be used for pedophiles the way methadone is used to deep voice). To Levy, it’s not a stretch to imagine treat drug addicts,” potentially reducing recidivism rates some humans falling in love with and even mar- for sex offenders. Many people find this idea immediately rying robots within a few decades. distasteful. Arkin empathizes with them, he tells me, but he thinks it’s better to investigate the therapeutic potential of First, Do No Harm such robots “in a controlled way” rather than simply avoid- One result of this influx of robots into our bed- ing research because it makes us squeamish. While no U.S. rooms is that it may “trigger a broader role for companies are publicly selling them, childlike sex dolls are the concept of moral harm in law,” suggests already available online from foreign makers. University of Washington law professor Ryan In Canada, child sex robots are illegal, but there are no Calo in a 2014 paper, “Robotics and the Lessons U.S. laws yet specifically criminalizing them. In fact, there of Cyberlaw.” Certain uses of robots may be is reason to think the U.S. courts might carve out some legal deemed undesirable because they compromise space for them, as unlikely as that might seem: In 2002,

32 | reason | April 2015 Convincing oneself that a human sex worker isn’t faking it rests on the fact that, technically, she may not be. With robot companions, the fakery is inherent. It’s a given.

the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of a federal law way, rejected the idea that sex workers and cli- criminalizing “virtual” child pornography, described as ents will all go quietly into the good robot night. either digitally created images or those featuring young- This is largely due to the fact that people like looking adults pretending to be younger. “I could see that having sex with other people; even in the pres- extending to embodied [robotic] children,” said Calo, the ence of a robust robot sex trade, those inclined law professor, at the panel,“but I can also see courts and to pay for sex will still sometimes want to do regulators getting really upset about that.” so with a human being. But we also shouldn’t Regulatory concerns notwithstanding, “it’s coming to discount sex-worker resiliency—like the move the time when we start talking about these things,” Arkin from streetwalking to advertising on Backpage, argues. “Should the design of [sex robots] be informed those in the sex trade will adjust to suit the times. by science? Yes. Is anyone doing true scientific study on “Prostitution could well be one of the few forms intimate robots at this time? Not to my knowledge. I would of human labour that is likely to remain resil- encourage that line of research to be undertaken if we can ient in the face of technological unemployment,” get past our Victorian taboos.” posits Danaher. One area where academics and journalists seem enthu- Research on why men pay for sex has found, siastic about the possibilities for sexbots concerns robot more than any other common denominator prostitution. Love doll brothels can already be found in (variety, convenience, etc.), a desire for mutual- Japan. In a 2012 paper, “Robots, Men and Sex Tourism,” the ity. Clients want to feel, at minimum, like a sex New Zealand researchers Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars worker somewhat enjoys her time with them. enthusiastically predict that robot prostitutes will overtake In a 1997 study of male prostitution clients ages human sex workers by 2050. Yeoman and Mars paint an 27 to 52—nearly half of whom were married—a elaborate portrait of a posh Amsterdam robot brothel cater- desire for sex was frequently met with “social, ing to a high-end clientele and niche sexual preferences—a courting behaviors that were often flavored situation the writers see largely as a social good, capable of with varying degrees of romance.” Interview- invalidating all the messy moral concerns that human sex ing clients at a New Zealand massage parlor, workers present. researcher Elizabeth Plumridge found they “all Prostitution is illegal in the U.S. and many other coun- wanted a responsive embodied woman to have tries, and various nations have previously criminalized sex with. This they secured by ascribing desires, everything from vibrators to adultery, so lawmakers may response and sexuality to prostitute women. well move to block robot brothels also. But should robot They did not know the true ‘selves’ of these prostitution be legalized, would “the oldest profession” women, but constructed them strategically in a find itself, like so many others, vulnerable to technological way that forwarded their own pleasures.” disruption? Read one way, this research could support In his 2014 paper “Sex Work, Technological Unemploy- the future popularity of robot prostitutes, which ment, and the Basic Income Guarantee,” John Danaher, a could theoretically be programmed to portray law lecturer with The National University of Ireland, Gal- care and lust sufficiently well that we fall for it.

reason | April 2015 | 33 LibertarianMind_Reason_BW.qxp_Layout 1 2/2/15 4:56 PM Page 1

This, of course, depends in part on how effec- thing even the most sophisticated and intelligent robots tively artificial emotional intelligence and socia- can’t approximate—is one way to mitigate worry over bility is developed. But even if we grant that the future of social robots. If human beings bond with The Libertarian Mind “ realistically emo sexbots are possible, will they robots not for what they are but what they inspire in us, “ be “real” enough to afford mutuality? Whether perhaps our insurance lies in what they can’t inspire: a belongs on every we’re talking orgasms or affection, convincing sense of mutuality, reciprocity, and genuine agency. To oneself that a human sex worker isn’t faking it paraphrase David Levy, people don’t fall in love with an rests on the fact that, technically, she may not algorithm but a convincing simulation of a human being. freedom-lover’s bookshelf. be. With robot companions, the fakery is inher- Yet can any simulation really be convincing enough? Enough ent. It’s a given. How much that actually matters to have mass appeal? Enough to significantly change the remains to be seen. social fabric? —SENATOR RAND PAUL Near the end of Sex + Love with Robots—a techno- Everyday Ethics utopian volume if there ever was one—Levy writes that Giving sex toys and sex dolls the illusion of he does not believe for one moment that sex between two

agency will attract new users, Arkin suspects. people will become outmoded. “What I am convinced of,” The Libertarian Mindis so

“Not for everybody—it may go from one-tenth he declares, “is that robot sex will become the only sexual “convincing critics will want to of a percent to 1 percent—but it would grow the outlet for a few sectors of the population—the misfits, demographic exponentially.” the very shy, the very sexually inadequate and uneduca- condemn it, regulate it, tax it, ﬂeece“ In a June 2014 YouGov poll, Americans were ble—and that for some other sectors of the population split on whether using a sexbot is moral. Forty- robot sex will vary between something to be indulged in it, and forbid it. Fortunately, good three percent of those surveyed said using sex occasionally...to an activity that supplements one’s regular ideas haven’tbeen outlawed—yet. robots is wrong, and 39 percent said it’s accept- sex life.” able. Only 10 percent said they would use a sex On the margins, sexbots could dissuade some individu- —PETER THIEL, technology entrepreneur and robot themselves. als from pursuing human-to-human intimacy and relation- investor, author of Zero to One Should sexbot use reach the mainstream, ships, just as pornography, sex toys, and everything from couples will have to wrestle with questions like alcohol to work are also sometimes used to avoid attach- how to handle jealousy over robot companions ments. But it has become clear through countless bouts of and whether robot sex counts as cheating. Is hav- cultural and technological change that, for the most part, Boaz’s message is both timeless ing sex with a robot more like using a vibrator or people see no substitute for knowing and loving another “and extraordinarily relevant to the having a fling? Is it uncouth for friends to share person. To predict sexbots as even moderately widespread

a sexbot? What if someone creates a sexbot in stand-ins for sex and relationships reveals a not-insignifi- challenges that we are facing today.

your likeness? cant misanthropism. Sex robots also present ethical issues for aca- That isn’t to say that individual use of sex robots is It deserves to be read carefully and demics. “From a researcher’s point of view, what misanthropic. For many men and women, they will remain thoughtfully by everyone who “ is appropriate?” asks Arkin. “There are no guide- ancillary to interhuman relationships, more like sex toys lines for researchers in this particular space.” than humanity surrogates. For a subset, social robots may truly cares about creating a more The goal of many roboticists is to get to a provide opportunities for companionship and sexual sat- point where robots can successfully manipulate isfaction that otherwise wouldn’t exist. When this occurs, ethical and prosperous world. our emotions. To make robots more like socio- we’d all do well to remember that having faith in human —JOHN P. MACKEY, Co-founder and paths, able to recognize and use social cues, cre- institutions and relationships means not panicking over ate an illusion of empathy, and gain trust and new possibilities. Staying conscientious but open-mined Co-CEO, Whole Foods Market intimacy without reciprocity. toward the use of social robots, including sex robots, can Osaka University’s Hiroshi Ishiguro, who only enhance our understanding of what it means to be— PUBLISHED BY SIMON SCHUSTER supervised last summer’s “Android: What Is and to fall for—human beings. r Human?” exhibition in Tokyo, has said that “the process of understanding (human) nature is the Elizabeth Nolan Brown ([email protected]) is a staff editor most interesting part of androids.” And for some, at reason. AVAILABLE NATIONWIDE AND AT CATO.ORG/STORE. a faith in a quintessential humanness—some-

34 | reason | April 2015

LibertarianMind_Reason_BW.qxp_Layout 1 2/2/15 4:56 PM Page 1 The Libertarian Mind “ “ belongs on every freedom-lover’s bookshelf. —SENATOR RAND PAUL

The Libertarian Mindis so

“convincing critics will want to condemn it, regulate it, tax it, ﬂeece“ it, and forbid it. Fortunately, good ideas haven’tbeen outlawed—yet.

—PETER THIEL, technology entrepreneur and investor, author of Zero to One

Boaz’s message is both timeless “and extraordinarily relevant to the

challenges that we are facing today.

It deserves to be read carefully and thoughtfully by everyone who “ truly cares about creating a more ethical and prosperous world.

—JOHN P. MACKEY, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Whole Foods Market

PUBLISHED BY SIMON SCHUSTER

AVAILABLE NATIONWIDE AND AT CATO.ORG/STORE.

Will They Take Our Jobs? MIT economist Andrew McAfee on driverless cars, wireless fishermen, and the second machine age Interview by Katherine Mangu-Ward

Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Andrew McAfee hasn’t been replaced by a robot just yet. The following interview was conducted between two humans. Neither of the humans needed to bother to remember what was said, however: We recorded the conversation on an iPhone app, essentially outsourcing mem- ory to a computer. Pre-interview research was conducted with the aid of Google—no humans required there either, just well- crafted algorithms pointing in the direction of McAfee’s blog, popular TED Talks about automation and unemployment, and Ama- zon author pages. But the resulting MP3 file? It was transcribed by a human intern. Accuracy was important, and commercially available voice-to-text programs just aren’t good enough yet. Which is a bit disappoint-

Google self-driving car (Associated Press) (Associated car self-driving Google ing. Especially for the intern.

reason | April 2015 | 37 The rapidly shifting interplay between tasks that humans still do and tasks we delegate to our automated servants should feel like a familiar progression. In the first machine age—the Industrial Revolution—we replaced human brawn with steam power. But in so doing, we wound up creating more demand for labor: We needed people to tend to the increasingly complex machines, and to staff entire new industries that arose once humans were freed from the burden of lifting heavy stuff. We continue to contract out our need for brawn to machines, say McAfee and his co-author Erik Brynjolfs- son, but we have also started replacing human brains with processing power. In their 2014 book, The Second Machine Age, the economists describe a new world driven by the relentless doubling of computer processing capacity, known as Moore’s Law. McAfee, who has a Ph.D. from Harvard Business School, cheerily anticipates a fresh pro- fusion of consumer goods from this machine age, similar to the glut produced by the last one. But he says he’s no Candide—like many, he predicts that this time there will be no compensating boom in demand for human labor and he’s worried about the social and economic effects of not seizing opportunities in the right-hand lane, going widespread unemployment. Is he right? Are things really down the road at 55 miles per hour. I mean this as the different this time around? highest compliment: It was a godawful boring ride. In January, Managing Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward reason: What are some places in everyday life where spoke with McAfee about the economics of the robot revo- people may be undervaluing the extent to which the lution. robots or machines have already taken our jobs or taken over our lives? reason: You rode in the Google driverless car. Tell me about McAfee: I won’t say “taken our jobs,” because I still have it. one. A lot of these changes don’t keep screaming at you. Andrew McAfee: The experience went from terrifying to They happen kind of gradually. They’re bit by bit, but passionately interesting to boring in the space of one then you look up and you’re living your life pretty dif- ride. ferently than you did a few years ago. reason: Why was that? For me, professionally, if I could sit down and McAfee: When the guy who was driving the car hit the big look at what I was doing a decade ago or 15 years ago, I red button and took his hands off the wheel on the think it’d be night-and-day different. When I sit down highway, that was a white-fingernail moment. to start writing something or to learn something, I reason: Is there literally a big cartoon red button? basically have 30 tabs open on my browser. I’m search- McAfee: There’s honestly a big cartoon red button on the ing for a little stat, or I pull up a number from the St. dashboard. Louis Fed that’s got this great data repository. I don’t reason: That’s delightful. So he hits the button— go to the library; I don’t fire off requests to research McAfee: —and takes his hands and feet off the controls, and librarians. I use a research assistant for some things, we’re going at highway speeds in a completely self- but not for “hunt down this fact for me,” simply guided car. That was a little scary. Very quickly that because it’s easier and quicker for me to do it myself. passed, and then it became super interesting, because I When you’ve got the world’s knowledge at your fin- felt like an astronaut. I’m having this really uncommon gertips all the time and you’re supposed to be doing experience, and after a while, it sunk in that I was in a knowledge work, it really does change the way things

car that was obeying all relevant statutes, not weaving, happen. Eliseeva) (Evgenia McAfee Andrew

38 | reason | April 2015 reason: And how do you think that applies—if it does—to And it says, “OK, you walk over to Lex and 63rd, hop on people who are doing a different kind of job? There the F train, you’ll take it six stops, and get off here.” It’s are some guys in reason’s office right now assembling incredibly detailed information about how to navigate a million new desk chairs. It looks like their jobs aren’t a very unfamiliar city, so I can get around about as well very different. Am I wrong? as somebody who’s lived here a long time. McAfee: I think that part of their job is probably not very reason: Tell me what this has to do with the fisherman in different, but how they got their day’s schedule, how Kerala. they communicate with the head office, how they alert McAfee: That is probably my all-time favorite and most them that the job is done, the extent to which they’re heartening solid piece of research about what’s going monitored—maybe their truck has a GPS device in it on. A guy named Robert Jensen got to observe the eco- so headquarters knows where they are—I think those nomic lives of some systems-level fishermen in Kerala, things are actually pretty big changes. India, before and after they got mobile phones for the In long-haul trucking, for example, the industry very first time ever. has actually transformed itself, and trucking com- These folks were living in an I.T. vacuum. They’d panies started owning trucks again instead of giving go out every day and do their fishing, and they’d come them to subcontractors, mainly because they could back in and have to pick which local market to go to, monitor the drivers so carefully that they didn’t have to try to sell their fish. And you can imagine all the to rely on the fact that people take better care of their inefficiencies that would result because you couldn’t own equipment. match supply with demand carefully. Some days they Let me give you one from my nonprofessional life. would do great. Some days they would do lousy. Some I moved to New York City for the first half of 2015. Let’s days they would have to throw their fish away because assume that I didn’t have any friends here. nobody would pay them anything for it. It was a ter- reason: Should we make such a sad assumption? rible situation. McAfee: (Laughs) No, luckily I’ve got a lot of people to hang In a really beautifully designed study, Jensen got out with and to show me around. But let’s say I didn’t to watch what happened before and after cell phone have any of that but I was still interested in finding a towers went in at different points along the coast. So good café to go hang out at, at exploring different parts he had a bunch of different experiments, and he saw of the city, at getting around efficiently. the same thing over and over and over again. Markets I would do that by trial and error before. I’d make start to behave predictably and rationally immediately a ton of mistakes. I personally would find it really after the new technology becomes available. The first stressful, because I hate being lost and I hate feeling thing these people did was all go and buy a phone, stupid. because none of them are stupid, and they would use it Those problems are basically gone for me. I’ve to call ahead and say, “What’s the price at this market? got an app called City Mapper on my phone. I’m pretty Should I go over here?” And you just watch the mar- sure it was free. All I ever do is say, “I’m here in the kets regularize and clear in a way they could never do Upper East Side, I’m going to meet a friend for dinner before. down here in the West Village. How do I get there?” This is an example of what happens, what’s hap-

“So [a researcher did] a bunch of different experiments, and he saw the same thing over and over.…Markets start to behave predictably and rationally immediately after the new technology becomes available.” Andrew McAfee (Evgenia Eliseeva) (Evgenia McAfee Andrew

reason | April 2015 | 39 pening over and over and over around the world, as people and poor people are economically separat- these new technologies diffuse. We are greatly improving, particularly in the labor market. You call it “the ing the lives of people in a lot of ways. spread.” reason: The current education system is almost hilariously McAfee: There used to be a bunch of economic measures unsuited to this universe that you have just described. that all went up and down together, luckily primar- Tell me why everything is bad and how you can fix it. ily up. They did it in lockstep. They were really tightly McAfee: I think there are a lot of really extraordinarily coupled. And then, in recent years, we start to see these hard-working people in education, and I don’t pre- measures head in different directions and gaps open- sume for a second to have all the fixes. But one thing ing up between them. that our primary education system is doing a really For example, one of the graphs we draw has four good job of is preparing the kinds of workers that we lines on it for the entire postwar period: GDP per cap- needed 50 years ago in the height of the industrial era. ita, labor productivity, raw number of jobs, and median They acquire a suite of skills: They can read, they can family or median household [income]. For decades write, they can do math at some level. And more fun- after the end of the war, they were all going up, and damentally, they’re encouraged to follow instructions they were all going up just super, super close together. and to be obedient. You sit in the same place. You go Around 1980, the average median family income through this orderly process. People in the front of the line starts to tail off. More recently, the job growth room talk to you. It’s great training for industrial-era line starts to tail off. And the job growth line starts to white-collar and blue-collar workers. It’s pretty lousy tail off before even the great recession kicked in. Job training for the kind of thinking and the kind of peo- growth was fairly anemic all throughout the 2000s. ple and workers that we’re going to need as we move We call that phenomenon “the great decoupling.” deeper into the second machine age. It’s an example of this spread. You see it in returns reason: So what’s better? to labor vs. capital. You see it in these four lines. You McAfee: I was a Montessori kid, and I’m incredibly grateful see it when we look at wealth and income measures. I was a Montessori kid, because my earliest education Thomas Piketty certainly sees it [in Capital in the bore no relationship to that system I just described. It Twenty-First Century]. He just looks at a couple aspects taught me the world was an interesting place and my of it and labels them inequality, but these are all mani- job was to go poke at it. festations of a pretty common phenomenon. reason: You’ve said that entrepreneurship is something we reason: People get very emotional about this topic. You should encourage in American kids and welcome in can see that in the response to the Piketty book, and our immigrants. Why that, specifically? you can see it in lots of other peoples’ writing, includ- McAfee: I haven’t seen a computer that could convince ing Tyler Cowen’s The Great Stagnation and Charles investors to put together a business plan or really Murray’s Coming Apart. So before we get to your solu- spot an opportunity and figure out how to go after it. tions, give me your “So what?” Why does everyone care That still does feel to me like a human skill. But as we quite so much, given that the vast majority of people mentioned in the book, entrepreneurship, and in are doing better, there’s just a differential in the gains particular tech entrepreneurship, has been driven that seems to be opening up. by immigrants to a wild degree, and the people who McAfee: Let’s be careful about that. We are all doing bet- want to come to this country very often are the kind ter as consumers—as people who want access to goods of tenacious, ambitious, hard-to-satisfy ones. These are and services, and who want more of them, who want exactly the kinds of folks that you want to come in if higher variety, higher quality, lower prices, all those you’re interested in entrepreneurship. So especially at things. The bounty that comes out of capitalist sys- the level of skilled immigration, I find that kind of the tems, and in particular technologically driven ones, is biggest policy no-brainer out there. Even at the low- just stupefying. It’s pretty unbelievable, and I find that skill levels, we’re not displacing tons of native workers unambiguously good news. from jobs. The challenge comes when I look at things like reason: “Income inequality,” “coming apart,” “two Ameri- the median American household income. Even after cas.” There are lots of names for the ways that rich we adjust for inflation and for changes in family size,

40 | reason | April 2015 it’s not that it’s growing more slowly than it used to, it’s job. Those social ills are almost nonexistent in upper- actually lower than it was 50 years ago. For me, that’s middle-class Americans, and those upper-middle-class a decent answer to the “So what?” question, because Americans have been working pretty steadily through the fact that it’s real income means that it represents this period as well. Murray would disagree with the our best attempts to take into account the fact that flat- following: My very simple narrative there is that work screen TVs cost less than they used to, that it is your is a really good thing to have as technology encroaches actual purchasing power. It’s not a precipitous decline, and takes away some of the classic lower-middle-class it’s not that the middle class is starving in the streets, job opportunities. I think we see some social ills com- but it is a slow, steady decline. ing out of that. That’s part of the “So what?” answer. Another part And then the last part of the answer is that there’s is that there are some important categories of stuff that some pretty alarming data that among the lower rungs are not getting a lot cheaper over time. Higher educa- of the education and income ladder, health outcomes tion, health care, housing. Now, we can have a really are heading in the wrong direction. Average life span, active debate about why they’re following different for some demographic groups, is actually going down trajectories and whether we should head more toward recently in America after decades of pretty impressive libertarian-style market solutions for that. That’s a gains. really important, valid debate. It’s a bit of a separate I put all those things together, and I don’t find it question from the fact that are these things getting easy to be blasé about the spread. more or less affordable to the American family at the reason: You’ve said nice things about work for work’s own 50th percentile, and in a lot of cases they’re becoming sake. But actually, people hate work, don’t they? Most less affordable. people hate their jobs, at least some of the time. So why It’s also becoming more clear as we get the evi- do you want them to keep working? dence that social mobility is not where we think it is. McAfee: Among people who have looked pretty hard at this, The economic circumstances of your birth seem to play there’s a really broad consensus that when work—I a really large role in this country in determining your won’t say jobs—when work goes away from the com- economic life trajectory, even more so than they do in munity, relatively few good things happen and lots a lot of these European social democracies that we like of bad things happen. And again, that list, that litany to disparage. The low mobility is also part of an answer that Murray put together, is pretty telling to me. I don’t to “So what?” want to pretend that if everybody had a job, all those Charles Murray has documented that among things would magically go away, but I do believe that lower-middle-class Americans, there’s been, over the part of the reason that these ills creep in is idleness and past half-century, a really alarming rise in a bunch of not having the sense of purpose and dignity that comes social ills: in drug use, in dropping out of the labor along with the job. I don’t think those are just empty force, in not staying married, in children raised in things. single-parent homes, in incarceration rates. What’s reason: So if work has these good effects, and we’re con- interesting to me is that all those go along with a cerned about culture and economies coming apart, and really sharp decline in work, just being engaged in a meanwhile McDonald’s is automating order-taking

“For about 200 years, we had this wonderful phenomenon where, as the capitalist engine progressed, it needed a ton of labor at all different levels of skill.…It feels to me like this time might finally be different.”

reason | April 2015 | 41 and burger-flipping and Google is automating driving, or basic research, because the private sector tends to then…what? undervalue and therefore underfund that kind of McAfee: I want to be clear: I don’t demonize McDonald’s stuff. So our playbook consists of things like educa- and Google and all these other companies for trying tion reform and immigration reform and increased to use technology and use automation. They’re try- focus on entrepreneurship and doubling down on ing to keep their costs low. They’re a business. They’re infrastructure and revitalizing basic research. To me, not a social welfare organization. And they’re doing it that’s our best chance to create an economic environ- because they think they deliver better goods and ser- ment that would let the happy pattern repeat itself and vices to all of us. So I’m not saying that companies bring labor demand back. There’s no way that labor should take one for the team somehow and just start demand is going to come without a lot more economic bringing on lots of labor willy-nilly for the good of the growth. Great. Let’s do what we can to get the eco- community or the good of society. nomic growth. But all these companies acting in their own inter- reason: In the next, say, five to 10 years, what are the first ests are generating, I think, less labor demand than jobs to go? was the case previously. For about 200 years, we had McAfee: One of the quickest ones to me looks like differ- this wonderful phenomenon where, as the capitalist ent flavors of customer service reps, where they’re engine progressed, it needed a ton of labor at all differ- using their language skills. They’re using their pattern- ent levels of skill, and instead of dropping out, instead matching skills. Our technologies are really, really of mass unemployment, instead of mass starvation, we good at both of those right now. They’re going to get had the rise of a large stable prosperous middle class in worlds better over the next five to 10 years, so people country after country. doing that kind of knowledge work, I think, are going It feels to me like this time might finally be differ- to face some unemployment headwinds. ent. The data that I talked about are not just blips; they Depending on the regulatory environment, I think look like trends. And when I look at tech progress, I a highly functional, autonomous vehicle is easily in don’t see it changing course. that timeframe, so we have a lot of people who drive Now, what do we do about it? I think we try as for a living now who are going to be confronted by hard as possible to prove me wrong and to make this automation. time just like all the other times, where even though I think if a piece of technology is not already the there was a lot of tech progress, the average worker world’s best medical diagnostician, it easily will be in wound up with a better job and a higher wage. five or 10 years. Now, I don’t know if, again, there are reason: And how do we do that? going to be regulatory policy changes that would allow McAfee: In the book we tried to concentrate on the really that technology to diffuse. But if that happens, we’ve uncontroversial parts of the Econ 101 playbook. And got a lot of people who diagnose us for a living who are you’ve got to go a long way outside of the mainstream going to be confronted by technology that does it bet- economics profession before you’ll find someone ter. who’ll say that the government should not be involved What then happens in these different fields is not in building out infrastructure or primary education that the employment goes down to absolutely zero. It’s

“Among people who have looked pretty hard at this, there’s a really broad consensus that when work goes away from the community, relatively few good things happen and lots of bad things happen.”

42 | reason | April 2015 that it goes down to a pretty small number of very com- played a lot of Battlezone. I’m not getting those hours petent, pretty high-level people supported by a ton of back. (Laughs) automation. reason: What technologies are people currently undervalu- reason: That’s something that has happened in lots of other ing and what tech are people currently overvaluing? places already, right? McAfee: I think we’re simultaneously overconcerned about McAfee: Yeah. Longshoremen are the classic job where A.I. progress in an existential sense and undercon- that happened in the 20th century, but the happy phe- cerned about it in an economic sense. Because I do nomenon is that other industries sprang up that, again, think that these advances are going to pretty quickly needed labor at all different skill levels. I’m encour- enter the business world, and I think they’re going to aged by things like Uber and Airbnb and the rental accentuate all these phenomena that we talk about in economy that’s giving average people a chance to earn our book. some money. That’s great. I hope it continues. I personally think 3D printing is extraordinarily reason: There’s this vogue for famous technophiles to cool, and it’s going to help with our innovation work freak out about artificial intelligence [A.I.]. We’ve got and our prototyping and stuff like that. There are peo- a statement from the Future of Life Institute signed ple who believe it’s going to massively disrupt office by Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, saying basically, supply chains and the manufacturing industry and “Everyone panic, the robots are going to kill us all.” everything all around the world in some realistic time- Are they right? frame. I don’t see that. McAfee: This is just not high on my list of concerns at all. reason: So you’re telling me that the future of, “Computer, The best I ever heard it explained is that we are mul- please make me a ray gun” is further off than I was tiple Watson and Crick moments away from anything hoping? like a Terminator or a Matrix scenario. McAfee: That’s actually going to—if you want to invest I could be wrong about that. I could easily be the time to put one of these things in your house and wrong. In which case, oops. Because the interesting learn to use it and acquire the plans, you can print out point they make is, “Look, even if it’s a very low prob- your gun. People have done that. What I don’t think is ability of that, and even if it’s kind of a long way off that all the gun manufacturers should say, “Oh man, in the future, we’re talking about an existential risk.” all of our big centralized factories are now completely OK. It’s easy to look at some of the recent advances and worthless.” extrapolate them forward and say, “Holy Toledo.” reason: What is the “to be sure” paragraph you wish you reason: What do you think is the most “Holy Toledo”– had put in the book? inducing advance recently? McAfee: Ask me that question in a few more years. Maybe McAfee: The most telling demonstration for me was when the job market’s going to spontaneously tighten back the guys at Deep Mind Technologies told their system up and the middle class is going to get on a healthy tra- to learn to play classic ’80s-vintage Atari video games. jectory again and this whole book is going to stand as They didn’t tell them the rules of the games, they didn’t another example of “Ha ha ha, see how terrible that tell them what controls they had, they didn’t try to tell timing was.” them what was good or what was bad or advanced or reason: Right. “shoot that tank, but don’t shoot that thing over there.” McAfee: And I guess when the Terminator comes and All they said was to the system, “Your job is to maxi- knocks on my door, I’ll say, “Gosh, I wish I’d been a mize that number up there, which is called the score. little more guarded about the prospects for artificial Knock yourself out.” For the majority of the games intelligence.” that they included, the system is now the world’s best reason: I think the Terminator’s going to let you live, player. because you’re convincing all of us to lower our reason: How did it do on Pong? defenses. McAfee: You would never score a point against it on Pong. McAfee: That’s true. I could be the quisling for the Termina- reason: That’s disappointing. That’s a lot of time wasted by tors, right? I’ll be their intermediary. r a lot of teenagers. McAfee: Yeah. It’s the world’s best Battlezone player, and I

reason | April 2015 | 43 The Settlement Shakedown Federal and state governments are extracting and pocketing huge payments from big businesses, perverting justice along the way. Scott Shackford

In September 2007, the “Moonlight Fire” ripped through 65,000 acres of northern California, forcing the evacuation of 100 homes and the exertion of thousands of firefighters over 16 days. More than two-thirds of the wreckage occurred on federal land, so the government had a keen interest in assessing blame.

What one U.S. attorney called “the largest recovery ever…for damages caused by a forest fire” had instead come to symbolize a trend of government shaking down deep- pocketed defendants.

State and federal officials quickly located a culprit: with the DOJ, engaged in “egregious and repre- Sierra Pacific Industries, one of the biggest lumber pro- hensible conduct” in the case, failing to turn over ducers in the United States. A logging company contractor thousands of pages of documents indicating that working for Sierra Pacific on Labor Day struck a rock with several other people could be responsible for the a bulldozer, investigators claimed, setting off the sparks fire—people who lacked Sierra’s deep pockets. that kindled the initial blaze. Though the company insisted Also revealed in a 2013 audit: For years, Cal Fire it was not at fault and did not start the fire, it settled with the had been secretly and illegally stashing money federal government in 2012 after Judge Kimberly Mueller from settlements in a nonprofit under its control for the Eastern District of California suggested in pre-trial rather than depositing it in California’s general orders that Sierra Pacific could be held liable for the fire, fund. According to Sierra Pacific’s filings, Cal under complex California forestry regulations, even if the Fire demanded a check for $400,000 for this contractor didn’t start it. fund as part of a settlement offer. The settlement was a massive haul for the feds: $55 mil- Nichols declared that the state had engaged lion to be paid out over five years, with the lumber giant in “a systematic campaign of misdirection with also agreeing to hand over more than 20,000 acres of its the purpose of recovering money from the defen- land. Yet to Sierra Pacific, it still may have seemed like a dants.” California was ordered to pay $32 million good deal. According to company filings, at one point the to reimburse Sierra Pacific’s court costs and fees, U.S. attorneys investigating the case claimed more than $1 and the judge tossed out the state’s lawsuit. billion in damages. The state of California also made its own In the wake of the scandal, all the judges separate demand for $8 million from the company. in the district representing that part of Califor- After Sierra Pacific opened its pocketbook, evidence nia were recused from considering the case, and began emerging that the settlement was based on improper Ninth Circuit Chief Justice Alex Kozinski—who prosecutorial withholding of key information, and even has been withering in his criticism of the govern- straight-up lies. By October 2014, after Sierra had delivered ment’s behavior—was asked to assign a replace- $29 million of its settlement to the Department of Justice ment judge. He ultimately decided to return the (DOJ), the company was asking the District Court to void case to the district, putting it in the hands of the agreement due to “fraud upon the court.” The alleged Eastern District Senior Judge William Shubb. Press) fraudsters’ motive? To secure a financial windfall for both What U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner boasted in ZUMA the state and the federal government. a 2013 district report was “the largest recovery While such post-facto complaining might sound par ever by the United States for damages caused by for the course from expensive corporate defense attorneys, a forest fire” had instead come to symbolize an the charges had enough merit to stop the state-level lawsuit ominous trend of government greedily shaking in its tracks and send shockwaves throughout the Golden down deep-pocketed defendants. State’s legal system. In February 2014, Plumas County Under Attorney General Eric Holder, the Judge Leslie C. Nichols found that the California Depart- DOJ has netted more than $100 billion in civil ment of Forestry and Fire Protection and the California fines, settlements, and restitution for fiscal years

attorney general’s office, which jointly investigated the fire 2012 and 2013. Criminal fines and settlements Kitchens/ (© Guy Fire Moonlight page: Previous

46 | reason | April 2015 account for another $80 billion. Attorneys gen- Hinders, recently staved off an attempt by the Internal eral throughout the 50 states have also learned Revenue Service to seize $33,000 from her on grounds that to love massive payouts from banks and other Hinders was consistently making bank deposits smaller big businesses accused of wrongdoing. Typically than $10,000, thereby potentially facilitating the never- agreed to in exchange for dropping civil and charged crime of intentionally structuring deposits in a criminal liability, these settlements in theory are way to avoid the Bank Secrecy Act.) It also doesn’t help for supposed to compensate victims. But govern- public relations that the kinds of crimes financial institu- ment agencies are often the biggest beneficia- tions get charged with make even the Hinders case sound ries, creating an incentive structure that favors clear-cut. negotiation over prosecution and big corporate One key difference is that large corporations can afford targets over discrete executive villains. The com- lawyers—and absorb settlements. Indeed, Sierra Pacific bination can too easily lead to perversions of lists four different law firms on the 100-page motion it filed justice. in November to overturn the agreement it had signed onto In January, Holder finally recognized a just two years before. similarly debased incentive that civil libertar- What sets the Sierra Pacific case apart is the scope of ians had been complaining about for decades: government skullduggery alleged, sometimes by govern- civil asset forfeiture against individuals, many ment insiders themselves. The complaint quotes two assis- of whom are never even charged with a crime. tant United States attorneys who were disgusted by the The attorney general issued an order banning behavior of their peers and reported it to superiors. what so far is only a small subcategory of DOJ One whistleblower, Robert Wright, was removed from asset seizures, but the move came amid mount- the case in 2010, calling it “the first time in [his] 40 years of ing bipartisan congressional pressure, increased practicing law that [he] felt pressured to engage in unethi- activism on both the left and the right, and a cal conduct as a lawyer.” Another, Eric Overby, left the case rash of recent press coverage, particularly in The on his own and reportedly met with Sierra Pacific’s counsel Washington Post. (reason has been documenting to express his concerns. He told them he had never seen a and denouncing civil asset forfeiture since the case like this one, adding, “It’s called the Department of 1980s.) Justice. It’s not called the Department of Revenue.…We win There is an emerging consensus in America if justice wins.” The U.S. attorney’s office denies the accusa- that having law enforcement pocketing and prof- tions of misconduct. iting from property taken from non-criminals is Overby’s view of what motivates the DOJ may need a serious miscarriage of justice. “Civil forfeiture rethinking. Pivoting off the increased attention on asset is fundamentally at odds with our judicial system forfeiture, some scholars are starting to look more closely at and notions of fairness,” argued John Yoder and the incentives that encourage U.S. attorneys and state attor- Brad Cates, former directors of the DOJ’s Asset neys general offices to pursue these big settlements. What Forfeiture Office, in aWashington Post op-ed piece they’re finding is not unlike the rural deputy dragging out four months before Holder’s announcement. the drug-sniffing dog as an excuse to search a car for loose Yet this insight has generally not been applied cash to seize, but on a much larger scale. to the property of large corporations. Which is a The pursuit of a giant settlement from Sierra Pacific Press) shame, since the temptation for police and pros- is no mere one-off. “Many states permit the office of the ZUMA ecutors is even more corrupting when the target attorney general to retain a specified percentage of the is an entire bank instead of someone who has damages and civil penalties obtained through enforcement merely withdrawn a pile of cash from one. of state and federal antitrust laws, and many others have similar provisions linked to the enforcement of consumer California vs. the Big Guy protection, false claims and related statutes,” wrote law pro- Giant logging companies and faceless invest- fessors Margaret H. Lemos and Max Minzner in a January ment banks do not engender the same sympathy 2014 Harvard Law Review article titled “For-Profit Public as, say, the owner of a cash-only burrito joint in Enforcement.”

Previous page: Moonlight Fire (© Guy Kitchens/ (© Guy Fire Moonlight page: Previous Arnolds Park, Iowa. (One such owner, Carole The bad incentives are as pervasive as they are unexam-

reason | April 2015 | 47 The amount that U.S. companies have paid in fines has skyrocketed from an estimated $1 billion a year in total fines at the turn of the 21st century to more than $12 billion in 2014 from federal judgments alone.

ined, the authors argue: “Other states have established all- Delta for each documented violation—meaning, purpose revolving funds for the support of the office of the every time a consumer accessed the insufficiently attorney general, which are funded by the proceeds of any labeled app. A federal judge eventually dismissed civil litigation conducted by the attorney general and may the lawsuit over a conflict with federal law, sav- be used for the performance of any of the powers or duties ing the company potentially billions in fines. of the office. Such civil enforcement provisions have flown If even a state attorney general doesn’t know almost entirely under the academic radar, even as commen- which businesses are impacted by federal regu- tators have heaped critical attention on similar provisions lations, think how tough it is for the compa- governing the forfeiture of assets in criminal law.” nies themselves to keep up. Harris’ misstep has For example, did you know the Health Insurance Por- not put a dent in her ambitions: In January, she tability and Accountability Act of 1996 includes a provision announced that she’ll be running to fill retiring that funds its own enforcement arm from fines and recov- Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer’s seat in 2016. ered assets? Or that the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 allows the IRS to keep a quarter of the money it collects Feeding the Beast pursuing unpaid taxes? Both mechanisms are comparable As America struggled through the 2008 housing to how law enforcement agencies bolster their funding collapse and its aftermath, state governments in with assets seized during drug busts. “Just as asset forfei- particular felt the pinch. Asset forfeiture became ture provisions create incentives for enforcers to maximize an increasingly attractive way for bureaucrats to forfeitures,” Lemos and Minzner write, “such enforcement- fill funding gaps. funded revolving funds create incentives for enforcers to In 2012, the federal government and 49 maximize financial recoveries.” states hailed a massive settlement with five large The amount that U.S. companies have paid in fines has banks—JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, Bank skyrocketed in recent years, from an estimated $1 billion of America, and GMAC (now called Ally Finan- a year in total fines at the turn of the 21st century to more cial)—over allegedly abusive mortgage and fore- than $12 billion in 2014 from federal judgments alone, closure practices. More than $25 billion in relief according to a September 2014 cover story in The Economist was coming to affected homeowners, prosecu- titled “Criminalising the American Company.” The twin tors bragged. “Our settlement holds America’s threats of overregulation and money-hungry bureaucrats largest banks accountable for harms homeown- has meant that businesses spend millions trying to comply ers suffered from shoddy loan servicing, illegal with arcane rules to avoid attention from prosecutors look- robo-signing, and faulty foreclosure processing,” ing for any excuse to pounce. declared Washington State Attorney General Consider Kamala Harris, California’s ambitious attor- Rob McKenna. Much of the money did go to ney general, who filed suit against Delta Airlines in 2012 harmed homeowners, but not until the govern- (and threatened other big companies with the same) over ment skimmed off a healthy cut. a California law requiring that a privacy policy be con- Some $2.5 billion of the settlement went to spicuously posted within smartphone apps. Harris’ office states to use pretty much however they wanted. warned in a press release that it could demand $2,500 from The national affordable housing advocacy group

48 | reason | April 2015 Enterprise Community Partners analyzed how a boatload of money shaking down corporations and other the states were spending the settlement money businesses through civil asset forfeitures that are very hard and discovered that many of them diverted it to to defend against.” programs that had nothing to do with housing. Asked whether financial incentives played a role in the In several states, the money went without strings Enron case, she says the DOJ certainly cashed in. “I know to the office of the attorney general or directly the department got…hundreds of millions from Citibank into the state’s general fund. In California, Gov. and some of the other banks related to the Enron debacle. Jerry Brown proposed using part of it to help And…I don’t know where all that money went. Maybe some plug holes in the budget for the state Department of it was owed, but the way the government goes about it of Justice and for debt service on state housing and what they do with it has no transparency that I know programs. of.” Despite these potentially corrupting finan- While Powell sees the settlements as prosecutors shak- cial incentives, the possibility of prosecutorial ing down Wall Street for the cash by threatening criminal misconduct in the Sierra Pacific case hasn’t got- charges against anybody who might try to resist, the popu- ten the same kind of attention as, say, the Long list Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi makes the opposite Island snack-food distribution company that had point: that banks and corporations are greasing the skids $447,000 seized by the office of then–U.S. Attor- by agreeing to large payments that absolve boardrooms ney (and current U.S. attorney general nominee) and executives of culpability for the housing bubble and Loretta Lynch for the same kind of small-deposit collapse. activity that ensnared the Iowa Mexican restau- In a November piece, Taibbi concluded that the DOJ’s rant. (In January, the federal government finally $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase in 2013 should agreed to give the money back to the owners be seen not as a punishment but as a bribe. “The root bar- of Bi-County Distributors, who had never been gain in these deals was cash for secrecy,” Taibbi writes. charged with a crime.) “The banks paid big fines, without trials or even judges— But Sierra Pacific did draw the attention of only secret negotiations that typically ended with the pub- Sidney Powell, a former assistant U.S. attorney lic shown nothing but vague, quasi-official papers called turned private white-collar defense lawyer, who ‘statements of facts,’ which were conveniently devoid of wrote about the case in October for the New York anything like actual facts.” Observer. Powell’s own experience with prosecu- Per the terms of the settlement, $2 billion will go torial misconduct in pursuit of convictions led straight to the U.S. Treasury. Hundreds of millions will to a 2014 book, Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corrup- be split among the attorney general’s offices in California, tion in the Department of Justice (Brown Books). Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York. Just $4 Among the subjects: the misbehavior of pros- billion, or less than one-third, is intended as “consumer ecutors going after Merrill Lynch executives in relief” for anybody harmed by JPMorgan Chase’s conduct. 2003 for connections to the Enron scandal (in Wall Street critics like Taibbi are frustrated that under the course of extracting an $80 million settle- such settlements, nobody goes to prison for fraud or mis- ment from the brokerage); the destruction of conduct. This would seem to put him at odds with Powell, the accounting firm Arthur Andersen following whose post–Department of Justice career revolves around a conviction (subsequently overturned unani- defending executives and corporations in court. What con- mously by the Supreme Court) for its work with nects the two is a shared belief that bad incentives are push- Enron; and the pursuit of charges against Sen. ing the DOJ to pursue money rather than justice. As Holder Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who lost re-election and Congress begin the first baby steps toward rolling back after federal accusations of corruption in 2008. the civil-asset-forfeiture regime against individuals, it’s Despite being convicted (and later dying in a time to start being more skeptical when a similar practice is plane crash), Stevens was cleared after revela- aimed at corporations. r tions of prosecutorial misconduct. “It’s an outrage the way they handle things,” Scott Shackford ([email protected]) is an associate editor at reason. Powell says. “I think they found out how to make

Darienne Dykes smiles as she thinks about her 5-month-old son, Phoenix. “He’s everything to me,” says the 21-year-old Nashville resi- dent. “Being a mother is just the most amazing experience.” Wiping tears from her eyes, she continues, “And now looking back, I definitely regret continuing using drugs during my pregnancy.” Dykes is not alone. Approxi- mately 900 babies were born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) in Tennessee last year, a 10-fold increase from a decade ago. NAS is caused when mothers continue their opiate use through pregnancy. Babies can usually be weaned off the drug within a few weeks after birth, and there are no known long-term effects. Attorney Amy Weirich, a strong pro- Thomas Castelli of Tennessee’s ponent of the law, says the point isn’t American Civil Liberties Union Tennessee officials have declared to lock up these women. Instead, she points out that threatening moth- NAS an “epidemic,” however, and considers the law a state-sponsored ers with the criminal justice system took action last July by implemen- “motivation” to seek treatment. doesn’t help when there’s not enough tating Public Chapter 820. This law drug treatment facilities to begin allows the authorities to charge a “What we hope to do is to get these with. There are only 19 facilities in woman with assault for using a nar- women help for their addiction,” says the entire state that offer rehabilita- cotic while pregnant if her child is Weirich, explaining that the women tive care to pregnant women, and born harmed by the drug. An assault have the choice to go through drug these are mostly centered in popu- conviction is punishable by a fine court and complete rehabilitation lated areas, leaving rural women with and anywhere from one to 15 years instead of being processed through the burden of driving long distances in prison. So far, at least nine women the regular criminal justice system. to attend treatment. For many of have been charged. Once treatment is successfully com- these lower-income single mothers, The law has been controversial, pleted, she says, the charges would this is logistically difficult. with opponents saying it’s counter- be expunged from their record. But This shortage in treatment facili- productive to put a drug-addicted if the program is not completed, jail ties has resulted in waitlists ranging

mother in jail. Shelby County District time is the consequence. from a few weeks to a few months. Winkler) (Amanda son, Phoenix her 5-month old with Darienne Dykes Abstinence Neonatal born with a baby Burlingham/Dreamstime); (Elliot Drug paraphernalia top: from Clockwise (Otnaydur/Dreamstime) Pregnancy Winkler); (Amanda Syndrome

54 | reason | April 2015 Due to the new law, the waitlist can ing an illness,” he says. The case, Rob- tinue her successful drug rehabilita- mean the difference between free- inson v. California, concluded that the tion for years to come. dom and imprisonment for a preg- state’s law which criminalized being “Just the joy he brings me from nant woman. a drug addict was unconstitutional. hearing the little giggle to seeing the Castelli argues that this law does the little smile, there’s nothing else that Castelli argues that the law not only same thing. can beat that in life,” says Dykes. will prove to be counterproductive The law has a sunset provision “There’s no drug that can give you but is unconstitutional. “It violates and is set to expire in two years, at that feeling.” r the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme which time lawmakers will review its Court back [in 1962] determined that efficacy and consider extending it. In Amanda Winkler (amanda.winkler@reason. tv) is a producer at Reason TV. For a video it would be cruel and unusual to pun- the meantime, Dykes, who has been version of this story, go to reason.com.

Darienne Dykes with her 5-month old son, Phoenix (Amanda Winkler) Winkler) (Amanda son, Phoenix her 5-month old with Darienne Dykes Abstinence Neonatal born with a baby Burlingham/Dreamstime); (Elliot Drug paraphernalia top: from Clockwise (Otnaydur/Dreamstime) Pregnancy Winkler); (Amanda Syndrome ish people for having a status or hav- clean for nine months, plans to con-

reason | April 2015 | 55

Culture and Reviews

Hi, Robot How science fiction androids became real-life machines. Peter Suderman

Before there were robots in real life, there were robots in science fiction. Many decades’ worth of robots. Unsurprisingly, those works of imagi- native fiction led directly to the reality we live in today. The idea of humanoid automatons goes back centuries—historian Noel Sharkey has found evidence of robot-like designs in ancient Greece—but the word robot is less than 100 years old. It was first used by the Czech writer Karel Capek in a 1920 play called R.U.R., which tells the story of a revolt at Rossum’s Uni- versal Robots, a factory that produces humanoid machines. (Capek’s robots were biological creations, more like androids than metal men.) The word robot was drawn from robota, a Czech word meaning drudge work. Capek’s story set the tone for decades of robot fiction, mostly by stoking fears that the servants could eventually turn on their masters. Such scenarios were on Isaac Asimov’s mind in 1939 when he wrote “Robbie,” the first of what would be dozens of influential stories about future societies populated by robots. In the introduction to The Com- plete Robot, a 1982 compendium of his robot tales, Asimov explains that as a sci-fi-reading teenager, he found that

Isaac Asimov, 1984 (Associated Press) (Associated 1984 Asimov, Isaac the stories tended to fit largely into

reason | April 2015 | 57 Briefly Noted one of two categories: Robot as Menace, which parents send the robot away because essentially reworked the Frankenstein myth her mother finds the attachment to of the rebellious creation; or Robot as Pathos, an artificial friend unseemly and which imagined them as lovable companions, unnatural; the parents spend the rest often abused by human overseers. Asimov’s of the story attempting to convince first robot story was intended to take the Pathos their daughter to get over her obses- route, but he quickly found himself with a sion with her lost pal. rather different notion. In the end, the two are reunited, “I began to think of robots as industrial the robot saves the young girl’s life— products by matter of fact engineers,” he wrote. Asimov’s First Law in action—and “They were built with safety features so they the parents give in. It’s a parable Bottoms App! weren’t Menaces and they were fashioned for about human attachment to robots, A new generation of alcohol certain jobs so that no Pathos was necessarily the absurdity of social stigmas on delivery services is offering involved.” technology, and the inevitability of lazy lushes a chance to order productive partnerships between wine, beer, and liquor directly o science fiction author contributed more human beings and their creations. from their smartphones or Web Nto the way that science fiction imagined Asimov’s Three Laws became browsers. At reason’s D.C. robots, and none were as influential on the field permanent fixtures of debates about office in January, we tested a of robotics itself, as Asimov. Indeed, Asimov robot ethics, spawning countless few. coined the word robotics in his 1941 short story books and articles. And while intelli- The best of the Uber-but-for- “Liar!,” about a robot that unexpectedly devel- gent humanoid robots didn’t become booze bunch is Klink, a slick ops telepathic powers. the common household appliances app-based delivery service that Asimov by then had already dreamed up an he foresaw, his factory-built robots whisked a nice selection of ethics code that would guide his writing, shape sure did. beers to the office in a neat 25 the broader popular debate, and even inspire minutes. One disappointment: industrial designs for decades to come. The Many early industrial robots were Klink’s logo is a parachute, Three Laws of Robotics were the basic operat- designed and built by Unimation, a and at least one reason staffer ing system for Asimov’s go-to fictional robotics firm co-founded by the physicist/ thought we’d be getting our firm, U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men. The first entrepreneur Joseph Engelberger, draughts by drone. No such law prevented robots from harming humans commonly known as the Father of luck—at least not until the either by action or inaction; the second law Robotics. Under Engelberger, Unima- Federal Aviation Administration ordered robots to obey human commands so tion created the very first industrial gets around to clarifying the long as they did not conflict with the first law; robot, a mechanized assembly line rules about the commercial use the third law required robots to protect them- arm called the Unimate, which was of unmanned aerial vehicles. selves, so long as there was no conflict with the placed in a General Motors factory in For now, drivers pick up booze first two laws. Many of Asimov’s stories were 1961. By the late 1970s, the company from a local (licensed) liquor- investigations into aberrant robot behavior pro- was producing as much as one-third store partner and drop it off in duced by the laws’ loopholes and contradictions of all industrial factory-line robots. less than an hour at no markup. when exposed to unusual circumstances. Engelberger, who received a Competitors in the one-hour Asimov, an outspoken rationalist and sci- doctorate from Columbia a year booze delivery space include ence popularizer, was attracted to the way that after Asimov received his, explicitly Ultra, which has a creaky robots were creations bound by logic, consis- credited his fascination with the browser-based interface, and tency, and rules. They were also moral creations: subject to Asimov. The industrialist glitchy Drizly, which wasn’t tools and helpers, friends and companions, to was enamored enough of the science accepting orders on the day of be celebrated and used rather than restricted fiction writer that he asked him to the test. and feared. draft the forward to his 1980 book on —Katherine Mangu-Ward “Robbie” tells the tale of a young girl’s fas- robotics industry management prac-

cination with one such robot companion. Her tice and, a few years later, named his Klinkdelivery.com

58 | reason | April 2015 SiteworksReasonK 10/10/08 2:28 PM Page 1

company’s custom-built servant-bot University of Sussex argues in a 2013 “Isaac.” paper on “The Mutual Influence of Science Fiction and Innovation,” the The Enduring he Menace/Pathos dichotomy relationship between technology and Tpersists in the popular imagina- fiction is a kind of two-way exchange. Elegance of tion today. On the one hand, robot Science fiction influences invention, helpers in homes and factories are an which then influences science fiction, Limestone everyday reality for millions—build- in an ever-evolving loop of creative ing cars and computers, vacuuming ideas and practical refinement. homes, and giving us directions. On the other hand, popular culture is For Asimov, that give and take still packed with tales of robot take- between science and fiction was a overs. Two of 2015’s most anticipated lifelong reality. Late in his life, he movies—Avengers: Age of Ultron and wrote about how astonished he was Terminator: Genisys—feature power- to see his science fantasies come true. ful intelligent robots determined to In an introduction to the 1985 edition “I see [robots] growing of the Handbook of Industrial Robotics, Asimov looked forward to a future in incredibly more complex, which the kind of friendly, produc- versatile, and useful than tive partnership between humans they are now,” Asimov and robots he had envisioned would wrote. “I see robots become even more robust. “I see robots growing incredibly leaving human beings free more complex, versatile, and useful to develop creativity, and I than they are now,” he wrote. “I see see humanity astonished them taking over all work that is too at finding that almost simple, too repetitive, too stultifying for the human brain to be subjected everyone can be creative,” to. I see robots leaving human beings destroy their human creators. free to develop creativity, and I see Indeed, fears of the robot apoca- humanity astonished at finding that lypse are pervasive enough that in almost everyone can be creative in 2008 a team of researchers from one way or another.” Washington University in St. Louis Humans and robots, he predicted, held a conference workshop on how would continue working together, science fiction influences perceptions “advancing far more rapidly than and interactions with robots. either could alone.” It would be a Liberate Your Fireplace “It’s surprising how often people future of beneficial mutual depen- from ordinary ... to EXTRAORDINARY make nervous jokes about robots dence, in other words—a relationship With the enduring elegance of taking over the world,” roboticist Bill much like the one between the sci- limestone. Smart told New Scientist at the time. ence fiction thinkers and scientific SITEWORKS “Most people have never seen a robot tinkerers who made robots a reality. Custom Limestone Mantels 1-800-599-5463 before. Their experiences—such as In the end, maybe the robots will take www.siteworkstone.com they are—all come from movies or over. But only because we let them. r literature.” Call Today For Your There’s research to back up this Peter Suderman ([email protected]) is a senior editor at reason. FREE Color Catalog! impression. As one team of media

Klinkdelivery.com and technology academics from the

reason | April 2015 | 59 Briefly Noted How to Survive a Robot plausible plop into the world we live Uprising in. A whole intellectual industry has sprung up to treat computer demos Seeing dark omens of catastrophe in as dark omens. new tech demos. Ford is correct that, like floods or Robin Hanson wars, super-robots are likely to arrive eventually. That is, if our automation Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless technologies continue to improve, Future, by Martin Ford, Basic Books, 352 pages, $28.99 it is plausible that in the long run, robots will eventually get good Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots, enough to take pretty much all jobs. No Fools doesn’t like the recent increase in U.S. wage But why should we think some- Walter Williams, syndicated inequality. So he wants to tax the rich more, thing like that is about to happen, big newspaper columnist and to fund a basic income guarantee for the poor. and fast, now? After all, we’ve seen guest host for Rush Limbaugh, (But only the U.S. poor. Other poor don’t seem jobs replaced by automation for cen- is one of America’s best-known to concern him.) turies. Sure, there have been fluctua- free market economists. A new Maybe you think you’ve heard this story tions in which kinds of jobs are more PBS documentary on his life, before. But Ford, a software engineer and busi- valued and which are most vulner- Suffer No Fools, shows how he nessman, doesn’t argue that inequality is uneth- able to automation. Wage inequality learned about the problems ical or that it will destroy democracy. He instead has also varied. But why shouldn’t we with government economic argues that inequality will soon get much just expect these things to stay within policies from experience. worse, so bad that most adults won’t be able to roughly the same range of varia- A poor teen growing up in find jobs. So bad the economy will descend into tion we’ve seen in the past? Work- the projects in Philadelphia “catastrophe.” And all because of robots. ers found new jobs before, and the in the ’50s, Williams worked Now, Ford wants to reassure you that he economy never imploded because of odd jobs to make money—until isn’t crazy. He isn’t one of those people who see automation; more like the opposite. child labor laws got him fired. robots with human-level intelligence coming Many have cried this wolf before. In 1959, Williams had to put his soon and superintelligent terminators killing This isn’t the first time people have education on hold when he was us all soon after. No, Ford just thinks that dumb been so impressed with new tools drafted and packed off to the robots specialized for particular jobs are quite that they’ve warned machines may segregated South. (Williams is enough reason to panic. black.) He deeply resented this confiscation of his labor and n the old days, if you wanted to scare people caused as much trouble for his Iinto action via fear of a coming catastrophe, superiors as he could: writing you could point to most anything unusual as an letters, staging protests, and omen: an eclipse, a sighting of a strange animal, eventually earning a discharge a king dying young, perhaps even a new strain in 1965. of music becoming popular. It helped if your Williams, now 78, still raises coming catastrophe was something, like a flood hell about coercive government or war, that everyone knew would come eventu- labor policies. Never one to ally—that it was a matter of when, not if. pull punches, he tells reason: Today, we know more about how the world “Minimum wage law is one of works, so fearmongers can’t just point to any the most effective tools in the aberration as an omen. But Ford’s fears are arsenals of racists all around thoroughly modern: all those new computer- the world.” —Robby Soave based gadgets. Such things spook many people today, because super-robots come from a realm

of futurist speculation that has landed with a DelMonte) (Steven No Fools Suffer the Robots of Rise

60 | reason | April 2015 soon make us replaceable. Ford rate at which computer hardware take most jobs, so this must be now. admits this, and pointing out how prices fall could let computers If a big burst of automation takes in the 1960s such people were top quickly displace many jobs, if we most but not all jobs, won’t those academics who attracted big press. reach a threshold where many jobs who lose jobs to robots switch to In the 1980s, I was personally caught all require roughly the same comput- doing jobs that robots can’t yet do? up in a similar wave of concern; I ing power. But while computer prices After all, this is what we’ve seen for left physics graduate school to start a have been falling dramatically for 70 centuries, and it is the straightfor- nine-year career researching artificial years, the job-displacement rate has ward prediction of labor econom- intelligence (A.I.). held pretty steady. This suggests that ics. But Ford says no, new firms jobs vary greatly in the computing like Google and Facebook have few Like many others today, Ford says power required to displace them and employees relative to sales. As if this time really is different. He gives that jobs are spread out rather evenly Google’s experience were some sort four reasons. along this parameter. We have no of universal law, Ford says, “Emerg- First, there is a 2013 paper by particular reason to think that, con- ing industries will rarely, if ever, be Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, an trary to prior experience, a big clump highly labor intensive.” Yet even if engineer and an economist at Oxford of displaceable jobs lies near ahead. this turns out to be true, Ford doesn’t University, estimating that 47 per- And then there is Ford’s fourth explain why old industries can’t hire cent of U.S. jobs are at high risk of reason: all the impressive comput- more workers. being automated “perhaps over the ing demos he has seen lately. This Moreover, even if workers could next decade or two.” Ford likes this is where his heart seems to lie. He find new jobs, Ford still sees catas- paper so much that he mentions it in devotes far more space describing trophe if new jobs don’t pay as much, three different chapters. Yet this 47 things like Google’s self-driving cars increasing wage inequality. The percent figure comes mainly from the and language translators, IBM’s economy will “implode,” he says, authors “subjectively” (their word) Jeopardy champion Watson, Baxter’s because the rich just don’t spend labeling 30 particular kinds of jobs as flexibly programmable robots, automatable and 40 as not. They give and Narrative Science’s software almost no justification or explana- for writing news articles than expli- tion for how they chose these labels. cating reasons one through three. Peggy's Cove Such a made-up figure hardly seems Only rarely does Ford air any suspi- a sufficient basis for expecting catas- cions that such promoters exagger- trophe. ate the rate of change or the breadth 10-Day Tour $1395 Second, Ford thinks recent of the impact their new systems with Prince Edward Island Join the smart shoppers and experienced labor market trends are ominous. In will have. (He is somewhat skepti- travelers who rely on Caravan to handle the U.S., median wages have been cal about the market for 3D printing all the details! Call now for choice dates. stagnant and wage variance has and about prospects that self-driving Affordable Guided Vacations+tax,fees Guatemala & Tikal Ruins 10 days $1295 increased since about 1970, while cars will increase road throughput Costa Rica 9 days $1095 Panama Tour & Canal 8 days $1195 the labor share of income, the frac- soon.) And of course several genera- Nova Scotia & P�E�I� 10 days $1395 tion of adults who work, and the tions have seen A.I. demos with just Canadian Rockies 9 days $1595 Grand Canyon & Zion 8 days $1395 wage premium for college graduates as impressive advances over previous California Coast 8 days $1295 Mount Rushmore 8 days $1295 have all fallen since about 2000. Ford systems. New England & Foliage 8 days $1295 sees automation as the main cause Brilliant, Affordable Pricing of all these trends, but he admits o basically, Ford sees a robotic “—Arthur Frommer, Travel Editor ” that economists reasonably see other Scatastrophe coming soon because causes, such as changes in demo- he sees disturbing signs of the times: graphics, regulation, worker values, inequality, job loss, and so many Caravan�com 1-800-Caravan organization practices, and other impressive demos. It’s as if he can technologies. feel it in his bones: Dark things are Guided Vacations Since 1952 (Steven DelMonte) (Steven No Fools Suffer the Robots of Rise Third, Ford notes that the rapid coming! We know robots will eventually

reason | April 2015 | 61 Briefly Noted enough: “A single very wealthy person may buy about big automation progress soon a very nice car.…But he or she is not going to by betting $1,200 at 12–1 odds that buy thousands of automobiles.…The wealthy the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ mea- spend a smaller fraction of their income than surement of the labor fraction of U.S. the middle class.” Ford admits that increasing income won’t go below 40 percent by inequality since 1970 hasn’t hurt spending, but 2025. And since better computer soft- he attributes this to increasing debt that can’t ware should increase the demand for last. (Yet that debt increase is small compared computer hardware, I’ve bet $1,000 to the increased inequality.) He ignores the at 20–1 odds that computers and fact that the world economy had increasing electronics hardware won’t be over wage inequality for centuries without implod- 5 percent of U.S. GDP by 2025. That’s 1844: The Year That ing. Worldwide inequality has decreased only just me, of course, but more and big- Remade America recently. ger bets like these could tell us what Few American elections were people think when they are willing to as pivotal as the one in 1844. Ford eventually admits that “the global eco- put their money where their mouths When James K. Polk beat Martin nomic system” might “adapt to the new reality” is. It wouldn’t cost that much to cre- Van Buren for the Democratic via “new industries producing high-value prod- ate prediction markets with prices nomination, the party’s ucts and services geared exclusively toward a This isn’t the first time libertarian-leaning anti-slavery super-wealthy elite.” He calls this “the most people have been so wing had to take a back seat to frightening scenario of all,” comparing it to the slaveholders and expan- the dystopian 2013 movie Elysium. In the end, impressed with new sionists. (Four years later, Van it seems that Martin Ford’s main issue really is tools that they’ve warned Buren’s faction would walk out that he dislikes the increase in inequality and machines may soon take altogether, forming the nucleus wants more taxes to fund a basic income guar- all the jobs. But Ford says of the new Free Soil Party.) And antee. All that stuff about robots is a distraction. when Polk defeated Henry Clay After all, there isn’t a fundamental connec- this time really is different. in November, the country was tion between automation and wage inequality; that estimate these and a great many set on the road to seizing the in past eras more automation was associated other important future events, esti- Southwest—and to some key with less inequality. If there’s a connection now, mates that are at least as reliable as disputes in the lead-up to the it may be temporary and change again. More those from any other public source. Civil War. important, if we want to increase transfers I’d also like to see a time series John Bicknell’s America 1844 because we dislike inequality, we don’t need of the rates at which jobs were dis- (Chicago Review) is the rivet- to discuss robots at all. It wouldn’t matter why placed by automation in the past. If ing story of an eventful year, inequality is high; we’d just increase transfers this rate were unusually high and covering not just an election when we saw more inequality than we liked. Or rising, that would be an omen worth but nativist riots, pioneer jour- set up a system, like a basic income guarantee, noticing. But if it’s too hard to say neys, and religious frenzies. to do this automatically. which past jobs were lost to automa- Two spiritual movements play So why didn’t Ford just say this straight tion, what hope could we have of major roles: the Millerites, who out? Perhaps because many others have already predicting which future jobs will be expected Christ to return before taken that direct route, but with limited success. so lost? the voting started, and the It seems most people just aren’t very bothered Finally, trends in the rates of Mormons, who ran their own by current levels of inequality. So they need to progress in robotic research are candidate. He didn’t make it to be scared with something else. worthy of study. When I meet experi- November: A mob killed him, enced artificial intelligence research- making the prophet Joseph f I’m not persuaded by Ford’s omens, what ers informally, I often ask how much Smith the first man assassi- Iwould persuade me? Well, I take betting progress they have seen in their nated on the White House trail. odds seriously. Since automation might reduce specific A.I. subfield in the last 20

—Jesse Walker employment, I’ve expressed my skepticism years. A typical answer is about 5 to detail) (cover 1844 America

62 | reason | April 2015 10 percent of the progress required to achieve human-level A.I., though some say less than 1 percent and a few say that human abilities have already been exceeded. They also typically say they’ve seen no noticeable reason acceleration over this period. If a more sustained study bears online store out those informal answers—and if that rate of progress persists—it would take two to four centuries for many A.I. subfields to (on average) reach human-level abilities. Since there would be variation across subfields, and since achieving a human-level A.I. probably requires human-level abilities in most subfields, a broadly capable human-level A.I. should take even longer than two to four centuries to emerge. Further- more, computer hardware gains have been slowing lately, and we have good reason to think this will cause software gains to slow as well. Perhaps my small informal survey is misleading for some reason; bigger, more systematic surveys would be useful, as well as more Visit the thoughtful analyses of them. We do reason store for expect automation to take most jobs t-shirts, sweatshirts, eventually, so we should work to better track the situation. But for now, mugs, caps, and Ford’s reading of the omens seems more. to me little better than fortunetelling with entrails or tarot cards. r

Robin Hanson ([email protected]) is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He was a researcher in A.I. from 1984 to 1993, and he is writing a book on the social implications of the cheap availability of a brain emulation form of artificial reason.com/stuff intelligence. (cover detail) (cover 1844 America

reason | April 2015 | 63 Briefly Noted Somalia Lived While Its He strove to demolish independent Government Died sources of power outside the state and left a nation awash in weaponry “Serious” foreign policy minds care from his former patrons. Under about everything but citizens’ lives. Barre, military and administrative Brian Doherty costs consumed 90 percent of government spending, while economic Somalia in Transition Since 2006, by Shaul Shay, Transac- and social services commanded less tion Publishers, 304 pages, $59.95 than 1 percent. Shaul Shay is a former deputy In most American minds, Somalia raises head of Israel’s National Security Live Forever or Die Trying unsettling images of pirates and warlords, Council and a senior research fellow The Immortalists, a genial drought and famine, anarchy and downed U.S. at the International Policy Institute documentary now making the helicopters. For those arguing politics, the East for Counter-Terrorism. His new film-festival rounds, reveals the African nation is a powerful talisman: Its mere book, Somalia in Transition Since scientific passions and private name is deployed to trump any libertarian 2006, distills a bureaucrat’s-eye view lives of two leading anti-aging argument for less—or God forbid no—govern- of Somalia. It reads like a set of white researchers, Aubrey de Grey ment. papers left behind at a conference and Bill Andrews. Established in 1960 from former colonial of ministers, undersecretaries, and Andrews is the CEO of Sierra territories of Britain and Italy (though united academics shuttled in on taxpayers’ Sciences, whose slogan is for centuries by a rough sense of national iden- dimes to develop, as an actual United “Cure aging or die trying.” tity and language, with complicated clan divi- Nations report on Somalia states diz- De Grey is the founder of sions), Somalia has been without a functioning zyingly, “long term approaches to Methuselah Foundation and modern central state since the collapse of Siad institutional development [that] will the SENS Research Foundation. Barre’s socialist dictatorship in 1991. include support for the development “The first person to live to Barre’s allegiance bounced from the USSR to of capacities to formulate strategies 1,000 might be 60 already,” the U.S. during the Cold War, while his domes- [which will] involve the provision of de Grey said in 2004. Straight- tic approach tended toward ruthlessly inef- technical assistance to develop, for-

arrow Andrews is an ultra-mar- ficient central control, cronyism, and inflation. mulate and implement policies.” The Immortalists detail) (cover 2006 Since in Transition Somalia athoner; luxuriantly bearded de Grey is rarely seen without a pint of stout. Shot over two years, the film shows both men dealing with 80-something parents in declining health. De Grey’s mother dies. At age 60, Andrews marries for the first time. At age 50, de Grey is polyamorously part- nered with his 68-year-old wife and two other women, ages 45 and 24. Both men fiercely promote their distinct research agendas with some success. Biologists Leonard Hayflick and Colin Blakemore appear as skeptical counterpoints. —Ronald Bailey

64 | reason | April 2015 Shay’s book is all about war, parts of Somalia, resulting in a fresh perately poor and underdeveloped diplomacy, international confer- wave of 10,000 civilian deaths, 1 mil- nation. Access to clean water had ences, and failed attempts to make lion refugees, and 3 million in need not improved, and adult literacy and Somalia a modern Western state. of emergency food aid. school enrollment had gotten worse. While he barely expresses his own War, natural disasters, an absent Straight-up comparisons of official opinions, his book—especially when government—but how were people numbers showed gross domestic combined with research on Somalia living? Shay neither answers nor product (GDP) falling in the first outside its purview—shows Somalia even asks that question. What a soci- decade of statelessness, though Lee- has been more victim than benefi- ety looks like without squadrons of son felt these data were ambiguous ciary of the West’s attempts to fix it. technically trained experts isn’t wor- due to likely upward reporting biases thy of his serious consideration. in the Barre era. Shay devotes hundreds of pages to But Somalia did not completely Somalia’s grim and baffling recent ome other researchers are inter- devolve. In many respects, it more political and military history, but to Sested in Somalis who aren’t war- than held its own against its statist sum up quickly: After Barre’s regime riors or bureaucrats, and they have neighbors. As Leeson wrote, “on the collapsed, warlords hoping to estab- been fascinated by this phenomenon majority of the indicators…Somalia lish themselves as a true national of a stateless zone in the modern improved more than its neighbors government fought, looted, and world. Some of the more prominent over the same period, suggesting that extorted. The United Nations and such researchers have been of a lib- the collapse of government resulted United States intervened, but by the ertarian bent. But even the libertar- in greater development improve- mid-’90s both had given up. ians, such as the economists Peter ments than would have occurred The early 21st century brought Leeson of George Mason University in its absence. In a number of cases, a period of relative peace, disrupted and Benjamin Powell of Texas Tech, Somalia has been improving while by three separate attempts to cre- rely on data and analysis from non- its neighbors have been declining.” ate internationally supported “real” libertarian scholars and standard National macro-statistics for Somalia, governments that in practice exacer- international sources. as with most of sub-Saharan Africa, bated conflict. As much of the largely In a 2007 paper in the Journal are known to be unreliable, but they pastoral population just tried to live of Comparative Economics, Leeson are the closest we have to big-picture

The Immortalists detail) (cover 2006 Since in Transition Somalia their lives, an alphabet soup of often examined 18 development indicators knowledge. Islamist militias rose and fell and for Somalia. He found that “14 show The Somali cattle trade managed rose and fell, fighting each other and unambiguous improvement under to thrive through that first decade of the feckless would-be national gov- anarchy. Life expectancy is higher statelessness, for example. Leeson, ernments. today than…in the last years of gov- relying on data collected by Peter Lit- By 2006, a coalition of Islamist ernment’s existence; infant mortality tle in his 2003 book Somalia: Economy courts—known as the Islamic Courts has improved 24 percent; maternal without State, wrote that “Between Union (ICU)—dominated Mogadishu, mortality has fallen over 30 per- 1989 and 2000 the value and volume the nominal nation-state of Soma- cent; infants with low birth weight of the cattle trade [from Somalia to lia’s nominal capital. They imposed has fallen more than 15 percentage Kenya] increased 250 and 218 per- some rough versions of Shariah law points; access to health facilities cent respectively.” Somalis managed where possible. Although they won has increased more than 25 per- a working monetary system via a much love from the Somali people centage points; access to sanitation combination of Barre-era currency, for reducing the number of extor- has risen eight percentage points; counterfeits of it, and the U.S. dollar. tionary checkpoints and amount of extreme poverty has plummeted Many multinationals continued to militia fighting, they became targets nearly 20 percentage points…and the do business in Somalia. Apparently, of American wrath. In late 2006 a prevalence of TVs, radios, and tele- trade, technology, and tribal institu- U.S. proxy invasion by Ethiopians phones has jumped between 3 and tions do more for Somali lives as (long-time enemies of the Somalis) 25 times.” lived than a collection of administra- brought violent chaos back to huge Somalia was still, certainly, a des- tors in Mogadishu.

reason | April 2015 | 65 Briefly Noted A 2012 paper from the International Crisis ticated system of group insurance, Group concluded that the “international com- essentially committing to pitch- munity made a mistake in recognizing the ing in to help make good on costly [Transitional Federal Government] as the misbehavior by their relatives. (In a national government, representative of all less Rothbardian touch, the largely Somalia. The parliament is self-selected by nomadic pastoral Somalis don’t rec- those who had the means or connections to ognize true individual ownership of participate in the endless peace conferences in landed property.) Arta, Mbagati, and Djibouti City that led to the formation of the last three transitional govern- he ICU’s legal system tended ments. Many legislators have few, if any, real Ttoward a non-uniform syncretist Send in the Clones ties to the local people they claim to represent. mix of Shariah and xeer, with the The TV series Orphan Black, The president was then ‘elected’ by this non- former applying most to family, mar- starring Tatiana Maslaney as representative institution. The government has riage, inheritance, and strictly civil grifter Sarah Manning and her failed to win the trust of most Somalis.” matters. Some instances of harsh various “genetic identicals” Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia scholar at Davi- Shariah-like physical punishment (some of them are touchy son University and no partisan for anarchy, The Somali people have about the c-word), returns to astutely noted in a 2007 article in International BBC America for a third season Security that at worst, “anarchist” Somalia decently functioning April 18. has emulated existing international anarchy, cultural and juridical The tale of a group of clones developing bottom-up systems of “protection practices that come becoming aware of their roles and access to resources…through a combina- surprisingly close to in a decades-long genetic tion of blood payment groups (diya), custom- experiment and forming bonds ary law (xeer), negotiation (shir), and the threat the private adjudication of sisterhood, Orphan Black of force—mirroring in intriguing ways the systems proposed by explores a wide range of bio- practices of collective security, international Murray Rothbard and tech issues, from ethics in sci- regimes, diplomacy, and recourse to war, which David Friedman. ence to intellectual property, are the principal tools of statecraft that modern from reproductive rights to states use to manage their own anarchic envi- are known to have happened in Mog- government-created cartels. ronment.” But, he says, “these extensive and adishu when the ICU dominated the Maslaney plays nine clones, intensive mechanisms for both managing con- city. But as Hanno Brankamp wrote four of whom appear regularly. flict and providing a modest level of security in in a 2013 overview of ICU practice for The show avoids cliché sci-fi a context of state collapse are virtually invisible Think Africa Press, “Contrary to popu- McGuffins and tells rich stories to external observers, whose sole preoccupa- lar assumption and terminological in which such issues come up tion is often with the one structure that actu- intuition, the Islamic Courts were naturally. (“This situation isn’t ally provides the least amount of rule of law to not able to establish a system under your usual identity crisis,” Somalis—the central state.” which sharia was systematically, or Sarah explains to a trans-clone The Somali people have decently function- even exclusively, applied.” Indeed, who has just found his sisters.) ing cultural and juridical practices that come clan law “ensured that the legal force This thoughtful and compelling surprisingly close to the private adjudication of Islamic law remained limited.” show suffers no identity crisis, systems proposed by the anarcho-capitalist Andre Le Sage, a political scien- knowing exactly who and what writers Murray Rothbard and David Friedman. tist at National Defense University, it is: a sterling example of smart That “legal” system, known as xeer, generally wrote in a 2005 paper that “custom- modern TV that uses science- outlaws only direct physical harm to other ary xeer is the most far-reaching fiction tropes to illuminate our people or their personal property. Xeer is built of the Somali justice systems, par- future. —Ed Krayewski entirely around victim compensation, known ticularly in rural areas that are com- as the diya, not punishment or imprisonment. monly beyond the reach of formal

Kinship groups have an interestingly sophis- judicial systems, and is the most Orphan Black

66 | reason | April 2015 effectively enforced.” Since these var- army and the African Union force in ious justice systems have maintained Somalia.” “a modicum of peace and security in various parts of the country,” he A wide range of scholarship and com- added, trying “to force one system mentary on Somalia, most with no across all areas would undermine ideological ax to grind, tells an inter- those systems that function locally, esting and even somewhat encourag- and ‘rule of law’ assistance could in ing story—one about a society with those circumstances create more con- an unusual and robust clan-based flict by undermining the structures system of dispute resolution and that currently underpin local peace goods provision that has managed Give the gift of and security arrangements.” to keep daily life moving along even Those are some of the cultural without a “Somali government.” reason resources that have helped Somalia’s (Even the threat of Somali piracy has development indicators keep pace practically disappeared compared n Birthdays with its neighbors’. What has bedev- to its zenith in the early part of this n Graduations iled the Somalis, from the Cold War decade.) But for all its very fine- n Anniversaries to the war on terror, is being treated grained details about militias and as a pawn in larger powers’ schemes. conferences and battles, Somalia in Or just about any occa- Intervention has bred intervention: Transition Since 2006 misses this tale sion, why not give a The 2006 Ethiopian invasion to over- entirely. reason gift subscription? turn the ICU led to the rise of the Al The problems with Shay’s book, It’s fast and easy and Qaeda–allied radical Islamist group as informative as it is about what it your gift will last all year! Al Shabaab, which led in 2009 to a chooses to cover, are the problems new Kenyan invasion. (The Kenyans, with the American and international like the Ethiopians, acted with outlook toward Somalia writ small: America’s active cooperation.) Back Both view bureaucrats and military in 1992, a State Department official leaders as paramount, ignoring what said that the U.S. mission in Somalia life is actually like for the people try- was “basically re-creating a country.” ing to live, work, co-exist, and even Having perhaps learned that that’s a thrive. r trick that never works, Washington is now more cynically using Somalia to Senior Editor Brian Doherty (bdoherty@ reason.com) is the author of four books, wage a drone war and to run rendi- including Radicals for Capitalism: A tion and torture camps. Freewheeling History of the Modern American As the latest attempt to impose Libertarian Movement (PublicAffairs). a national government flounders in internecine bickering, the Associ- A Notice To Our Subscribers ated Press reported in November that From time to time, our subscriber list is rented to others. We carefully screen Somali sources said the U.S. is threat- those to whom we rent our list and try ening to cut off aid to the would-be only to rent to those whose offers we state if the current president and believe may interest our subscribers. If you do not wish to have your name prime minister can’t work together included on our rental list, simply let us effectively. The existing aid package know by writing us at: includes “$58 million…in develop- reason Simply go to ment assistance in this fiscal year and 5737 Mesmer Avenue an additional $271 million in military Los Angeles, CA 90230-6316 reason.com/subscribe Attn: List rentals

Orphan Black assistance for the Somali national

reason | April 2015 | 67 Feeling Clint Eastwood’s We’re introduced to Kyle on a Disgust rooftop in Fallujah, sighting his rifle on the street below, alert for targets. American Sniper is not a He sees an Iraqi woman stepping pro-war movie. into the street with a boy who could Kurt Loder be her son. She hands the boy a weapon she has brought out from Whatever Clint Eastwood’s exact beneath her chador as they both politics may be—kind of libertarian? watch an American convoy that’s sort of conservative?—his hit movie, making its way toward them through American Sniper, waves no flags for the rubble of the city. Kyle’s duty is America’s involvement in the Iraq alarmingly clear, but his soul is torn. war. In a film inspired by the true story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, said o illustrate Kyle’s divided nature, to be the deadliest sniper in U.S. mili- TEastwood fills in his backstory tary history, Eastwood marshals deep with compelling economy, flash- feelings about the moral and physical ing back to his Texas childhood. We destruction of war, and he flashes see him out hunting with his father, anger toward the higher-ups who dropping a deer with a difficult shot. guide young warriors to their doom. We see the whole family in church, He doesn’t flinch from showing us and later, at the family dinner table, the full ugliness of combat—Ameri- we hear his father explaining his can forces violently invading an Iraqi stern view of the world. There are home, a vicious jihadi taking a power three kinds of people, he says: sheep, drill to a helpless civilian—but this is who “don’t believe evil exists”; in no way an old-school Hollywood wolves, the evil men who prey upon war movie. Eastwood never exults in them; and sheepdogs, men with “the the brutal action, and throughout the gift of aggression,” a “rare breed film we can feel his disgust. that lives to confront the wolf.” Kyle Over the course of four tours knows which sort of man his father in Iraq, Kyle was credited with 160 wants him to be. confirmed enemy kills, and he was Appalled by the 1998 Al Qaeda probably responsible for many more attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi that were undocumented. The man and Dar es Salaam, Kyle enlists in the had a terrible gift. Bradley Cooper, Navy and trains to join the SEALs, the political forces in which he’s caught who acquired the film rights to Kyle’s service’s elite sea-air-and-land divi- up, and this enables him to tightly bestselling 2012 memoir early on, sion. In a bar one night, talking to the narrow his focus. He wants only to plays him here, bearded and bulked- woman who will soon become his protect his fellow fighters and to up, in a performance of intense wife, he tells her, “I’d lay down my dispatch the evil enemies who seek focus. Cooper has come a very long life for my country. It’s the greatest to annihilate them. Nothing else mat- way from his breakthrough in Wed- country on earth.” ters. But his determination to main- ding Crashers 10 years ago. Here he When Kyle deploys to Iraq for the tain this difficult mental balance portrays a difficult character, a man first time, Eastwood shows us how begins eating him up inside. whose emotions are held tightly he reconciles his deepest beliefs—his inside, by subtly projecting those religious faith, his patriotism, his The movie is masterfully shot and feelings without parading them family values—with his duties as, edited. It’s also unexpectedly inti- before us. This is a wonder to watch essentially, a professional killer. He mate, especially in the scenes with

throughout. appears to have no interest in the Cooper and Sienna Miller, who have (Atlaspix/Alamy) Eastwood Clint and Cooper Bradley

68 | reason | April 2015 a rich chemistry. Miller plays Kyle’s more than a mile away) and awful pose. He doesn’t seek to arouse us wife as a high-spirited woman who things as well. He also has to listen with the slaughter amid which the loves her husband and the kids to fatuous officers make statements celebrated sniper spent so many of they’ve begun accruing but is dislike, “These wars are won and lost his days—the massacred civilians, traught as she watches him turning in the minds of our enemies,” a line the dying SEALs choking on their into a stranger, spooked and uncom- at which we can almost see East- own blood—but to make us think fortable at home and repeatedly wood cringing in revulsion. about it. It’s not a pretty picture, but drawn back to the never-ending war. There surely was more to the Eastwood has made a powerful film “You did your part,” she tells him. real Chris Kyle than what we see out of it. r “Let somebody else go.…If you think here. (He was shot to death two this war isn’t changing you, you’re years ago, ironically by a troubled Kurt Loder ([email protected]) reviews movies for reason.com. His most wrong.” But Kyle keeps returning to veteran he’d been trying to help.) recent book is The Good, the Bad, and the Iraq, where he does legendary things But Eastwood uses the key aspects Godawful (St. Martin’s Griffin).

Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood (Atlaspix/Alamy) Eastwood Clint and Cooper Bradley (taking out one jihadi killer from of Kyle’s life with determined pur-

reason | April 2015 | 69 Greg Beato killing him. A jury instructed Litton at a darknet market that offered Industries to pay $10 million in dam- thousands of items for sale—some ages to Williams’ family. Presumably, legal, others not. the robot got off scot-free. The bot bought a variety of items, No account of the incident sug- including 10 ecstasy pills. In the gests the robot acted with deliberate wake of its buying spree, various malice, or even recklessness, but the observers entertained the notion of incident set the stage for future dys- whether or not the artists might be topias nonetheless. We had begun to criminally liable for the bot’s actions. create a new category of machines But while the potential liability of that were capable of killing us—and the artists was indeed interesting, unlike, say, cars, guns, or roller another possibility emerged that was coasters, these new machines were even stranger than arresting human deliberately imbued with a degree beings for something a bot did with- of autonomy that could potentially out the explicit instruction or knowl- make their behavior somewhat edge of its creators or operators. The Roombas in the Big unpredictable. That autonomy would authorities could arrest the bot. House? only increase over time. In this particular instance, we know a crime was committed: What to do when robots break Thirty-six years later, the worldwide Ecstasy pills were purchased. And if the law robot population has exploded, and whatever local laws are in play sug- the bots are increasingly sophisti- gest the artists aren’t criminally liable In 1979, a robot killed a human for cated. Their designers have gotten for that purchase, then who is, except the first time. It happened at a Ford more sophisticated too, and that the bot that committed the act? facility in Flat Rock, Michigan, in an helps mitigate some of their poten- elaborate five-level structure called tial danger. The Litton Industries harging robots and other A.I. a core stacker where 10 robots con- robots weighed 2,500 pounds and Csystems with crimes may seem tinuously stored and retrieved large issued no warning noises when they absurd. And locking up, say, an incor- metal castings. Litton Industries, moved. Today’s robots boast sensors rigibly destructive Roomba in soli- which built the core stacker and the that help them avoid collisions with tary confinement sounds even more robots that toiled there, described humans, they’re often built out of preposterous. How exactly do we it as an “unattended system.” But light-weight and forgiving materials, punish entities whose consciousness according to a 1984 Omni feature and they’re often designed to be easy arises from computer code? about the incident, the machines to shut off. These are the kinds of questions actually required a great deal of But as artificial intelligence the law professor Gabriel Hallevy intervention in practice—people had (A.I.) systems—including bots that addresses in his 2013 book When to tweak alignments and pick up exist as nothing more than lines of Robots Kill: Artificial Intelligence Under dropped objects on a regular basis. code—become increasingly pervasive Criminal Law. But the robots, which glided and autonomous, it’s only natural to Hallevy, who teaches law at Isra- along rail-like tracks in near silence, assume that their potential for unex- el’s Ono Academic College, argues continued operating even when frag- pected and unwanted behavior is that there are both social benefits ile, fleshy human beings were nearby. going to increase too. In short, some and a legal precedent to applying And one day in 1979, one of those robots are going to commit crimes. criminal liability to A.I. systems machines, which was equipped with Take a recent project by a couple when they misbehave. sensors that allowed it to “see” some of Swiss artists. They created an auto- There’s certainly a rationale for components of the system but appar- mated shopping bot, gave it a budget this perspective. The coming pro- ently not people, rolled up behind of $100 in bitcoin per week, and liferation of robots is creating a fair

Robert Williams and struck his head, instructed it to go on a buying spree amount of anxiety, at least among the (TerryColon.com)

70 | reason | April 2015 human punditocracy. Many of their possesses these capabilities, then log- mean they’re easily or effectively concerns are economic in nature— ically and rationally, criminal liability punishable. As satisfying as it might they’re worried that robots are on can be imposed whenever an offense be to deliver 50 lashes to a robot butler the verge of putting everyone out of is committed.” who cuts in line in front of you at work. But robot anxiety is broader What matters, Hallevy suggests, Walgreen’s, that form of justice would than that. There are concerns about is not moral accountability or an A.I. be meaningless to the unfeeling drones and privacy, concerns about system’s ability to grasp concepts like machine. how self-driving cars will make snap good and evil, but rather culpabil- decisions when lives are at stake, ity. If any entity—human or robot— But as Hallevy writes in his book, some concerns about what happens when intentionally engages in actions that traditional functions of punishment, we unleash millions of intelligent are prohibited by law, then criminal like rehabilitation and incapacitation, entities that have the capacity to liability may be imposed. (Some- are applicable to A.I. entities. A robot make autonomous decisions instead times, of course, failure to act, a.k.a. that commits some criminal act and of just following predictable prepro- negligence, is also grounds for crimi- doesn’t learn on its own that such acts grammed routines. Decades of sci-fi nal liability.) are prohibited could potentially be stories have primed us to imagine the “rehabilitated” through reprogram- worst. onversely, robots that are sophis ming. And if reprogramming is inef- Cticated enough to be held crimi- fective, incapacitation for A.I. systems Perhaps our legal system can nally liable for their actions may is largely analogous to incarceration assuage these fears somewhat. also obtain protections under the for human beings: A killer robot that’s “Criminal law plays an important law that go beyond those your lawn- locked up or disabled simply won’t be role in giving people a sense of per- mower may enjoy. “This situation is able to kill again, regardless of its reha- sonal confidence,” Hallevy writes. “If similar to corporations, which are bilitative capacity. any individual or group is not subject non-human legal entities,” Hallevy In one light, the notion of heavily to the criminal law, the personal explained in an email. “Corporations manacled Roombas suggests a police confidence of the other individuals is are subject to criminal liability, and state run amok, a totalitarian future severely harmed because those who part of that ‘deal’ is that they have where the government’s appetite for are not subject to the criminal law certain basic rights. Consequently, discipline and punishment extends to have no incentive to obey the law.” corporations have the right to sue whole new classes of beings. What’s But if we understand that drug-buy- humans, corporations and even their compelling about Hallevy’s perspective ing bots and self-driving cars must ‘owners’ (the stock-holders). If we is that it involves neither pre-emption abide by the same rules we all follow, think of AI entities similarly as cor- of new technologies nor expansion of and face similar punishments when porations, we would not see a signifi- the law. Instead of banning advances they transgress, perhaps some of our cant difference.” in robotics before they’re even imple- anxieties about their potential behav- In his book, Hallevy elaborates mented or insisting we need to draft ior will dissipate. on the notion of corporations as a a wide range of new regulations, he Is this perspective fair to robots, precedent regarding our potential argues that “the current criminal law is though? Essentially, it puts them on treatment of robots. They’re not indi- adequate to cope with AI technology.” the same level as people, even though viduals, and they have no moral sen- Whatever brave new worlds are com- they’re clearly not human. The robot timents or thoughts or feelings of any ing, perhaps we’re already equipped to that killed Robert Williams in 1979 kind; yet we often find them guilty of handle them. r had no conception of morality. Nei- crimes and impose punishments on ther did the ecstasy-buying bot. them, independently of specific cor- Contributing Editor Greg Beato (gbeato@ soundbitten.com) writes from San Francisco. In Hallevy’s estimation, such porate employees who may also be concerns are unfounded. “Criminal involved in a crime’s commission. liability does not require that offend- While A.I. systems may indeed be ers possess all human capabilities, criminally liable for acts they com- only some,” he writes. “If an AI entity mit in certain situations, that doesn’t

reason | April 2015 | 71 Artifact

RoboCop 1.0 Nick Gillespie

The title character of the 1987 movie RoboCop was “part man,” “part machine,” and “all cop.” The concept was popular enough to spawn two sequels, a TV series, and a 2014 reboot film that promised, “Crime has a new enemy.” As this 1924 image of a hypothetical “Radio Police Automaton” attests, the dream of a perfectly impervious and unemotional peacekeeping force is an old one. “Such a machine would seem to be exceedingly valuable to disperse mobs,” enthused Hugo Gernsback in Science and Invention magazine. “The arms are provided with rotating discs which carry lead balls on flexible leads. These act as police clubs in action.…Bullets do not affect them and if equipped with a twenty to forty H.P. engine, they will be well nigh irresistible.” In the wake of highly publicized cases of police violence in Missouri, Ohio, New York, and elsewhere, it’s perhaps comforting to think that law and order can be outsourced to machines. But as the RoboCop franchise reminds us, human emotion, error, avarice, and empathy will always get in the way. Alas, even with radio-controlled automatons keeping the peace, somebody somewhere will still be calling the shots. r

Nick Gillespie ([email protected]) is editor in chief of reason.com and Reason TV.

72 | reason | April 2015 The Science of Mindfulness: A Research-Based Path TIME to Well-Being ED O T FF I E IM R Taught by Professor Ronald D. Siegel L H M S 70% C H A O 2 R off 2 1. Why Mindfulness Matters D H ER RC 2. Our Troublesome Brains BY MA 3. Informal, Formal, and Intensive Practices 4. Who Am I? The Perils of Self 5. Mindfulness or Psychotherapy? 6. Attention and Empathy in Relationships 7. The Science of Compassion and Self-Compassion 8. Tailoring Practices to Fit Changing Needs 9. Modifying Our Brain Function and Structure 10. Solitude—An Antidote to Loneliness 11. Connecting with Children and Adolescents 12. Seeing Sadness and Depression in a New Light 13. Befriending Fear, Worry, and Anxiety 14. Transforming Chronic Pain 15. Placebos, Illness, and the Power of Belief 16. Interrupting Addiction and Troublesome Habits 17. Overcoming Traumas Large and Small 18. Groundbreaking Mindfulness Programs 19. The Neurobiology of Self-Preoccupation 20. Growing Up Isn’t Easy—Facing Impermanence 21. Toward a Science of Wisdom 22. The Promise of Enlightenment 23. Mindful Ethics as a Path to Freedom 24. The New Science of Happiness Meld Ancient Wisdom

Charlie Birnbaum Atlantic City, New Jersey Institute for Justice www.IJ.org Private property rights